The OpenAI CEO was revealed to be Reddit's third-largest shareholder before the social media site goes public
Sam Altman’s status as Reddit $RDDT’s third-largest shareholder is poised to pay off big time when the social media site makes goes public later this month. Reddit and its shareholders are looking to sell almost $748 million worth of stock in its IPO, which could lead to a valuation of $6.5 billion. A new regulatory filing shows the company will offer 15 million shares for between $31 and $34 per share, with existing shareholders planning to sell another seven million.
At that share price, Altman’s stake in Reddit could be worth between $51.4 million and $56.4 million, according to a Business Insider estimate that calculated Altman owns about 1.66 million shares of the company.
In an IPO prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month, it was revealed Altman owns 8.7% of the social media platform, with a voting power of 9.2%. But the filing also says Altman “disclaims beneficial ownership of these shares except to the extent of his respective pecuniary interest therein,” meaning he doesn’t exactly own all the shares affiliated with him — they could belong to one of his funds, including Hydrazine Capital II and Apollo Projects, which are both named in the filing note.
Read more: What to know about the Reddit IPO
Despite Altman’s large stake and investments in Reddit, his seat on Reddit’s board from 2015 to 2022, and eight day stint as its CEO in 2014, the social media platform recently struck a deal with OpenAI’s rival Google $GOOGL. The deal will allow the search giant to use Reddit’s user-generated content to train its AI models.
When Reddit makes its debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “RDDT,” it will be the first major U.S. social media company to go public since Pinterest $PINS in 2019.
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