Kenneth Cheung
- Jony Ive, the former Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) executive best known for his design work on the iPhone and Mac, is joining OpenAI in a blockbuster $6.5B deal, the ChatGPT maker said on Wednesday.
- OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), is paying $5B in stock to acquire Ives’ hardware startupi io.
- “The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,” OpenAI said in a statement. “As io merges with OpenAI, Jony and LoveFrom will assume deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI and io.”
- Ive formed LoveFrom in June 2019.
- The acquisition is OpenAI’s largest in its history, eclipsing its recent deal to acquire artificial intelligence-assisted coding tool Windsurf for $3B.
- Apple shares fell 2% in Wednesday trading following the news of OpenAI acquiring Ives’ firm.
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