OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman has said that he held a small and indirect stake in the company owned via a Sequoia fund, which he has since sold and called it “insignificant.”

The specifics of when Altman sold his stake in the Sequoia fund and the amount remain unclear.

This disclosure comes amid scrunity over OpenAI’s shift to capped-profit model and challenges, including a lawsuit from Elon Musk and criticism from Meta.

Prior to this, OpenAI’s website listed his only declared investment as a past involvement with a Y combinator fund.

An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed that Altman has no direct ownership of the company and that his exposure through the Sequoia fund was minor.

Altman became CEO of OpenAI in 2019, and Sequoia joined as an investor in 2021 when OpenAI valuation was US$14 billion, now rising to US$157 billion.