OpenAI faces valuation, legal scrutiny

OpenAI is facing pressure on three fronts at once: valuation, regulation and security. (usnews.com) (legal.economictimes.indiatimes.com) (usnews.com) The latest challenge came from investors after the Financial Times reported Tuesday that some OpenAI backers are questioning the company’s $852 billion valuation as it shifts harder toward enterprise customers and prepares for a possible initial public offering as early as 2026. Reuters said those investors worry the move could leave OpenAI exposed to Anthropic and to Google as competition intensifies. (usnews.com) (channelnewsasia.com) That valuation question follows OpenAI’s March fundraising round, which Reuters said raised $122 billion and implied the $852 billion figure now under debate. The company has been pushing business tools and paid workplace products as rivals race to win large corporate contracts. (channelnewsasia.com) (usnews.com) In Europe, the European Commission said on April 10 that it is analyzing whether ChatGPT should be treated as a large online platform or search engine under the Digital Services Act after OpenAI reported user numbers above the law’s threshold. That law imposes extra duties on the biggest services, including risk assessments, outside audits and tighter transparency rules. (legal.economictimes.indiatimes.com) (wncy.com) The Digital Services Act threshold is 45 million monthly users in the European Union, and Reuters said OpenAI’s published figures appear to put ChatGPT above that line. OpenAI said it was cooperating with the Commission while arguing that ChatGPT is not a search engine or social media platform. (legal.economictimes.indiatimes.com) (yahoo.com) In the United States, federal prosecutors on April 13 charged 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama of Texas with throwing a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s San Francisco home and trying to set fire to OpenAI headquarters. A Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit said surveillance video captured the attack outside Altman’s residence. (usnews.com) (yahoo.com) San Francisco prosecutors said Moreno-Gama was also charged with attempted murder, and court papers cited by multiple outlets said he wrote about artificial intelligence as a threat to humanity. OpenAI said after the incident that no employees were harmed. (cnbc.com) (apnews.com) (nbcnews.com) The overlap is unusual: one week brought questions about whether OpenAI can justify a private-market price usually reserved for the world’s largest public companies, whether ChatGPT belongs under the European Union’s toughest platform rules, and whether the company’s leadership now needs heavier physical protection. Those issues are landing as OpenAI tries to sell itself less as a consumer chatbot maker and more as a core supplier of business software and infrastructure. (usnews.com) (legal.economictimes.indiatimes.com) (nbcnews.com) What happens next is more procedural than dramatic: investors will watch revenue and customer concentration, Brussels will decide whether ChatGPT crosses into the Digital Services Act’s top tier, and the criminal case in San Francisco will move through court. OpenAI, meanwhile, has to answer all three at the same time. (usnews.com) (legal.economictimes.indiatimes.com) (usnews.com)