Did OpenAI just spend more than $10 million on a URL?

On Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted a elemental URL connected X: chat.com. It automatically routes to OpenAI’s fashionable chatbot, ChatGPT.

Prior to this, the domain was owned by Dharmesh Shah, the laminitis and CTO of HubSpot. In aboriginal 2023, Shah purchased the chat.com domain for $10 million. However, conscionable a fewer months later, helium announced that helium had sold the domain, though helium wouldn’t disclose the details of the merchantability oregon the buyer. Notably, helium did corroborate that helium sold the domain for much than helium had primitively paid for it.

“The crushed I bought chat.com is simple: I deliberation Chat-based UX (#ChatUX) is the adjacent large happening successful software. Communicating with computers/software done a earthy connection interface is overmuch much intuitive. This is made imaginable by Generative A.I,” Shah wrote successful a LinkedIn station announcing the acquisition — which chat.com briefly redirected to earlier helium resold it. After the sale, Domain Name Wire noted that Shah had mentioned different purchaser had been funny successful the acquisition and speculated he’d flipped it to them.

While the domain’s afloat ownership past remains unclear, domain income database NameBio reports that chat.com sold for $15.5 cardinal connected March 28, 2023. This timing aligns with Shah’s LinkedIn station from May 25, 2023, announcing his merchantability aft 2 months of ownership. OpenAI declined The Verge’s petition for comment; Shah didn’t reply to a petition for remark successful clip for publication.

The driblet of “GPT” from the chat.com domain aligns with OpenAI’s caller rebranding efforts. In September, the institution announced a caller bid of reasoning models starting with “o1.” At the time, erstwhile main probe serviceman Bob McGrew told The Verge helium hoped that the o1 bid would people “the archetypal measurement of newer, much sane names” to amended pass the company’s work.

People hoarding “vanity domains” is simply a communicative arsenic aged arsenic the Internet itself. Just a fewer months ago, AI startup Friend spent $1.8 cardinal connected the domain friend.com aft raising $2.5 cardinal successful funding. For OpenAI, much than $10 cardinal is simply a driblet successful the bucket — the startup just raised $6.6 billion.