After a roller coaster year for the creator of ChatGPT, OpenAI has reached a deal with investors that reportedly values the California-based startup at $80 billion or more. The agreement, reported by The New York Times but not confirmed by OpenAI, means that the value of this global leading generative AI company has nearly doubled in less than 10 months. According to reports, the deal will allow the San Francisco-based company to sell existing shares to investors led by Thrive Capital. Following a major crisis in which co-founder and CEO Sam Altman was fired and then recalled to the company just days later, this deal will allow executives and employees to sell shares at a very favorable price. OpenAI revolutionized the field of artificial intelligence with the launch of its ChatGPT program at the end of 2022. The success of this program has sparked immense interest in this cutting-edge technology that can generate text, sound, and images on demand. Microsoft is already an investor in this startup and has increased its involvement. Over the past few years, the software giant has injected approximately $13 billion into OpenAI. Microsoft is in fierce competition with Google, developing and launching new tools that utilize AI generation capabilities, to the extent that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched an investigation in January of this year into Microsoft, Google, and Amazon's massive investments in specialized startups. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit organization in 2015 and faced a major crisis in November of last year. Its board of directors fired CEO Sam Altman, one of the most charismatic figures in Silicon Valley, accusing him of a lack of transparency. In the following days, Microsoft attempted to hire him, while executives and the majority of OpenAI employees demanded the resignation of those who fired Altman and called for his rehiring. Within a week, Altman returned to his position while several board members resigned. On Friday, OpenAI, which has already launched ChatGPT and the image generation tool DALL-E, released a new tool called "Sora," which can create realistic videos up to one minute long based on simple requirements. According to The New York Times, OpenAI reached a similar agreement earlier last year with venture capital firms including Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at $29 billion.