OpenAI just bought TBPN

OpenAI has purchased TBPN, an online talk show that often interviews AI executives and other tech leaders. The show goes live every weekday at 2PM PT, often for a three-hour duration, counting OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, as well as executives from Meta, Microsoft, Palantir, and Andreessen Horowitz, among its past guests, and Bloomberg, CNBC, and Fox Business as its competitors.

TBPN’s livestream is primarily available on X and YouTube, but many users watch it on X. OpenAI’s purchase comes as a lawsuit between Altman and Elon Musk, who was a co-founder of OpenAI before splitting from the project and now owns X, is headed to trial later this month.

TBPN host John Coogan wrote on X, “This is a full circle moment for me as I’ve worked with [Altman] for well over a decade. He funded my first company in 2013,” and the show started today’s live broadcast by focusing on the acquisition.

TBPN averages about 70,000 viewers per episode, and it generated more than $5 million in advertising revenue this year, with projections to draw in more than $30 million in 2026 revenue, according to The Wall Street Journal.

OpenAI’s reasoning for purchasing the show involved “accelerating the global conversation around AI,” according to a memo sent around the company Thursday by Fidji Simo, its CEO of AGI deployment. Simo writes, “As I’ve been thinking about the future of how we communicate at OpenAI, one thing that’s become clear is that the standard communications playbook just doesn’t apply to us … With the mission of bringing AGI to the world comes a responsibility to help create a space for a real, constructive conversation about the changes AI creates—with builders and people using the technology at the center.”

The TBPN team will help with OpenAI’s corporate comms and marketing, but Simo writes that it will retain “editorial independence” with regards to running programming and choosing guests. The team will operate under OpenAI’s Strategy organization and report to its VP of global policy, Chris Lehane.

The acquisition also comes at a time when OpenAI’s public image has taken some hits. Although the company recently closed a $122 billion funding round at a post-money valuation of $852 billion, it’s still reeling from internal and external controversy after Altman signed a deal with the Department of Defense while Anthropic is publicly battling with the Pentagon. OpenAI is also under more pressure than ever to generate revenue ahead of its reported plans to go public this year, and recently announced it would shut down the Sora video generator in order to devote compute and other resources to enterprise and coding tools.

Jordi Hays, co-host of TBPN, wrote on X, “The world is changing quickly but TBPN will stay the same. Live every weekday just with a lot more resources.”

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• Hayden Field