OpenAI has acquired TBPN, the weekday technology talk show that broadcasts on X and YouTube and regularly draws senior figures from across the industry as guests. The deal brings the program under OpenAI's umbrella while keeping its existing schedule intact.
The purchase answers a question that has been building around OpenAI for months: how does a company at the centre of some of the most consequential and contested developments in technology shape the conversation around its own work? The answer, it turns out, is to buy the room where that conversation is already happening.
The numbers behind the deal
TBPN averages around 70,000 viewers per episode and generated more than $5 million in advertising revenue this year, according to the Wall Street Journal. The show is projected to exceed $30 million in revenue in 2026. Previous guests have included OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, executives from Meta, Microsoft, and Palantir, and investors from Andreessen Horowitz.
Most of the audience watches via X, where the livestreams run each weekday.
Why OpenAI wants its own platform
Fidji Simo, OpenAI's chief executive of AGI deployment, set out the rationale in a memo circulated internally. She wrote that the standard communications playbook does not apply to a company whose mission is to bring artificial general intelligence to the world, and that OpenAI needs to create space for a genuine conversation about the changes artificial intelligence is producing, with builders and users at its centre.
Simo said the TBPN team would support corporate communications and marketing while retaining editorial independence.
A personal connection
Related reading
- Microsoft is sitting on a $215bn paper gain as OpenAI's IPO comes into view, reconstructed cap table shows
- OpenAI publishes open-source teen safety tools for developers building AI apps
- OpenAI strengthens Sora video safety and consent controls
For TBPN host John Coogan, the acquisition carries some history. Posting on X after the deal was announced, he described it as a full circle moment, noting that Altman had funded his first company back in 2013. The show opened its next broadcast by covering the acquisition itself.
The deal lands as OpenAI faces a trial later this month in Elon Musk's fraud suit against the company, and as it competes for attention with established business broadcasters in an increasingly crowded media environment.
The recap
- OpenAI purchases TBPN, an online talk show focused on AI
- TBPN averages about 70,000 viewers per episode on X
- TBPN will help OpenAI’s comms and marketing, retaining editorial independence
