OpenAI condemns Robinhood’s ‘OpenAI tokens’

OpenAI wants to make clear that Robinhood’s sale of “OpenAI tokens” will not give everyday consumers equity — or stock — in OpenAI, the company said in a post from its official newsroom account on X. OpenAI says it does not endorse Robinhood’s effort, nor was it involved in facilitating the token sale.

“These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity,” said OpenAI’s newsroom account on Wednesday. “We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it. Any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval—we did not approve any transfer. Please be careful.”

OpenAI’s statement is a response to Robinhood’s announcement earlier this week that it would start selling so-called tokenized shares of OpenAI, SpaceX, and other private companies to people in the European Union.

Robinhood says the launch represents an attempt to give everyday people exposure to equity in the world’s most valuable private companies via blockchain. Hours after announcing these token sales, Robinhood’s stock price shot to an all-time high.

But stock in private companies like OpenAI and SpaceX are not available to the public. That’s what makes them private. They sell shares to investors of their choosing.

So OpenAI is openly disavowing Robinhood’s effort.

In response to OpenAI’s condemnation, Robinhood spokesperson Rouky Diallo told TechCrunch that OpenAI tokens were part of a “limited” giveaway to offer retail investors indirect exposure “through Robinhood’s ownership stake in a special purpose vehicle (SPV).”

That suggests Robinhood owns shares of an SPV that controls a certain number of OpenAI’s shares. Like the tokens, shares of SPVs are not direct ownership of shares, either. They are ownership in a vehicle that owns the shares. In one way or another, Robinhood seems to be tying the price of its new tokenized product to the OpenAI shares in that SPV. But shares prices in an SPV can also differ from prices of an actual share of stock, as well.

In Robinhood’s help center, the company notes that when buying any of its stock tokens, “you are not buying the actual stocks — you are buying tokenized contracts that follow their price, recorded on a blockchain.”

“While it is true that they aren’t technically “equity,” … the tokens effectively give retail investors exposure to these private assets,” said Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev in a post on X on Wednesday. “Our giveaway plants a seed for something much bigger, and since our announcement we’ve been hearing from many private companies that are eager to join us in the tokenization revolution.”

OpenAI declined to comment further. Robinhood did not respond to TechCrunch’s additional questions about its SPV.

Private companies are known to push back against anything that could influence how their equity is valued. In recent months, humanoid robotics startup Figure AI sent cease-and-desist letters to two brokers running secondary markets that were marketing the company’s stock. Of course, these situations are different, but most startups don’t want people to believe that they’ve authorized share sales if they haven’t.