Tesla bull Cathie Wood's $54 million Ark Venture Fund invests in Sam Altman-led OpenAI, and Elon Musk sued both last month

Cathie Wood, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of ARK Invest, a leading investment firm known for its focus on disruptive innovation, has been a prominent bull on Tesla Inc. (TSLA) stocks. ARK Invest manages several exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with a total assets under management (AUM) of over $20 billion as of March 2023. One of these funds is the ARK Venture Innovation ETF (ARKQ), which focuses on next-generation technology and biotech companies.

One of the notable investments in ARKQ is in OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory founded in 2015 by a group of researchers including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Wojciech Zaremba, and others. The organization is dedicated to advancing digital intelligence in a way that benefits humanity as a whole.

Sam Altman currently serves as the CEO of OpenAI, while Elon Musk resigned from its board in 2018 due to his involvement in another company, Neuralink, potentially conflicting with his role at OpenAI.

In late February 2023, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against both Cathie Wood and ARK Invest, alleging that they had shorted Tesla stocks while publicly promoting their bullish stance on the company. The lawsuit claimed that this constituted market manipulation and sought damages. The exact amount of damages was not disclosed in the lawsuit.

Despite this legal action, OpenAI remains a significant holding in ARKQ, accounting for approximately 4% of the ETF's total assets as of March 2023. This investment underscores ARK Invest's belief in the potential of AI and its role in driving innovation across various industries.

It is important to note that the lawsuit between Elon Musk and ARK Invest is ongoing, and the facts presented here are based on publicly available information at the time of writing. The outcome of this legal action may impact the relationship between these parties and potentially influence ARK Invest's holding in OpenAI. However, it does not change the fact that OpenAI is a significant investment for ARKQ due to its potential to revolutionize AI technology.