OpenAI bought a voice‑cloning startup

OpenAI has acquired Weights.gg, a startup that built tools for cloning voices, according to a New York Times report published on May 15. Reuters carried the Times report in a May 17 item on TradingView and said it had not independently verified the acquisition. (nytimes.com) The reported target, Weights.gg, was described by the Times as a company that offered artificial-intelligence tools for creating and sharing voice models, including cloned voices. (openai.com) Public summaries of the report say financial terms were not disclosed. (openai.com) The reported deal lands as OpenAI has been expanding its work in audio. OpenAI said in March 2024 that its Voice Engine model could generate natural-sounding speech from a single 15-second audio sample, and the company said it was limiting that technology to a small-scale preview because of impersonation and fraud risks. (nytimes.com) ### Which company was reportedly acquired, and what did it make? Weights.gg was identified by the New York Times as the startup OpenAI bought. The Times described it as a social platform for creating and sharing AI algorithms, with tools that could clone voices, including celebrity voices. (nytimes.com) Third-party reports published after the Times article said Weights.gg had shut down its consumer-facing service earlier this year. Those reports also said OpenAI acquired the startup’s intellectual property and some employees, though OpenAI has not publicly confirmed those details. (openai.com) ### What has OpenAI said publicly about voice cloning before this? OpenAI said on March 29, 2024 that Voice Engine could create speech closely resembling an original speaker from a 15-second sample. The company said the model had shown uses in reading assistance, translation, support for non-verbal users and customer-service applications. (nytimes.com) A second OpenAI post in June 2024 said the company had used internal testing and limited partner trials to study the model’s risks and safeguards. OpenAI said those safeguards included requiring explicit and informed consent from the original speaker, banning impersonation without permission and building provenance measures for generated audio. (livemint.com) ### Why does this deal stand out inside OpenAI’s recent buying pattern? OpenAI has used acquisitions before to add infrastructure and product capabilities. In June 2024, OpenAI said it had acquired Rockset and would integrate the company’s technology into retrieval infrastructure across products, with Rockset team members joining OpenAI. (openai.com) In May 2025, OpenAI said the io Products team would merge with OpenAI to work with its research, engineering and product groups in San Francisco. That announcement tied the combination to product development and design rather than a base-model transaction. (openai.com) ### Has OpenAI confirmed this acquisition itself? OpenAI’s public newsroom did not show a standalone announcement of a Weights.gg acquisition as of May 17, 2026. The company’s recent-news pages listed product, safety and company posts, including a May 7 item on new voice models in the API, but not a statement on Weights.gg. Reuters’ May 17 item was also narrow. (openai.com) The wire report, as displayed on TradingView, attributed the information to the New York Times and said Reuters had not independently verified it. ### What comes next for the story? OpenAI’s next public signal is likely to come through a product post, a newsroom statement or an executive comment rather than a regulatory filing, because the reported target appears to be a small private startup. (openai.com) That is an inference based on how OpenAI announced Rockset and io, both through company posts describing team integration and product plans. (openai.com) May 17 is the latest public checkpoint available here: the New York Times reported the acquisition on May 15, Reuters echoed the report on May 17, and OpenAI’s public news pages still showed no separate confirmation. (nytimes.com) (openai.com) (tradingview.com)