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The domain now automatically redirects to OpenAI’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, right, and Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and CTO of HubSpot, left. (Photos via AP/X)
Indian-origin entrepreneur Dharmesh Shah, the co-founder and CTO of HubSpot, has sold the domain name chat.com to OpenAI for a price of over $15 million. The domain now automatically redirects to OpenAI’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT.
Shah made the announcement in response to a post by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who revealed the acquisition on X Wednesday. Altman’s post said, “chat.com,” which now automatically routes to ChatGPT.
Confirming the sale in his own response to Altman’s post, Shah explained that he sold the domain to OpenAI for a price higher than the amount he had originally paid but did not disclose the exact figure.
Shah shared his excitement about the sale on X, writing, “BREAKING NEWS: Secret acquirer of $15+ million domain chat .com revealed and it’s exactly who you’d think. For those of you that have been following me for a while, you may recall that I announced earlier this year that I had acquired the domain chat .com for an “8 figure sum” (which was later reported as being $15.5M).”
BREAKING NEWS: Secret acquirer of $15+ million domain chat .com revealed and it’s exactly who you’d think.For those of you that have been following me for a while, you may recall that I announced earlier this year that I had acquired the domain chat .com for an “8 figure sum”… https://t.co/nv1IyddP5z
— dharmesh (@dharmesh) November 6, 2024
He continued, “I also shared that I had sold the domain to an undisclosed buyer. I was not at liberty to share who the acquirer was (I was going to leave that to them, when they were ready). Well, in a 8 character tweet (talk about brevity), Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI revealed that they were the buyer. If you visit the website now, it goes to ChatGPT.”
According to a report by The Verge, Shah purchased chat.com in 2023 for $15.5 million, believing that chat-based user experience (ChatUX) would be the next big trend in software. He had initially bought the domain with the aim of tapping into the growing potential of natural language interactions powered by generative AI.
“The reason I bought chat.com is simple: I think Chat-based UX (#ChatUX) is the next big thing in software. Communicating with computers/software through a natural language interface is much more intuitive,” Shah wrote on LinkedIn when he first acquired the domain. His post briefly redirected to chat.com before he resold it.