Chat.com Purchased by Artificial Intelligence Company OpenAI for Over $15 Million

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – It was revealed this week that “chat.com” was purchased by San Francisco, California-based artificial intelligence (AI) research organization OpenAI for over $15 million, marking the third time the domain has changed hands in just two years.

HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah originally purchased Chat.com last year for $15.5 million; he then flipped it for an unspecified amount reported to be “well over $15 million” – with the entrepreneur writing at the time that “I have sold it for more than I paid” – to an entity whose identity was initially not revealed.

However, OpenAI was at the forefront of those suspected to have plunked down the dough, and this was indeed confirmed to have been the case on Nov. 6 when CEO Sam Altman posted “chat.com” on X (formerly Twitter), with the domain currently routing to ChatGPT, the company’s AI-powered chatbot.

Following Altman’s reveal of OpenAI as the purchaser, Shah confirmed this on X, saying that he was initially protecting the company’s right to privacy, in addition to his personal friendship with its CEO.

“BREAKING NEWS: Secret acquirer of $15+ million domain chat .com revealed and it’s exactly who you’d think,” he posted. “For those of you that have been following me for a while, you may recall that I announced earlier this year that I had acquired the domain chat .com for an ‘8 figure sum’ (which was later reported as being $15.5M). I also shared that I had sold the domain to an undisclosed buyer. I was not at liberty to share who the acquirer was (I was going to leave that to them, when they were ready). Well, in a 8 character tweet (talk about brevity), Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI revealed that they were the buyer. If you visit the website now, it goes to ChatGPT.”

While the exact amount of the sale is now currently known, it is speculated that Shah may have opted for OpenAI shares as opposed to cash.

Chat.com was originally registered in September 1996, making the domain one of the oldest on the Internet.