OpenAI has officially closed its nearly $6.5 billion acquisition of io, the hardware startup co-founded by famed former Apple designer Jony Ive, the company announced Wednesday. But it was careful to only refer to the startup as io Products Inc.
The blog post initially announcing the acquisition was also scrubbed from OpenAI’s website due to a trademark lawsuit from Iyo, the hearing device startup spun out of Google’s moonshot factory.
Now it’s back up, with a new note: “We’re thrilled to share that the io Products, Inc. team has officially merged with OpenAI. Jony Ive and LoveFrom remain independent and have assumed deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI.”
OpenAI originally announced the deal and plans to create dedicated AI hardware, with a video on social media featuring its CEO, Sam Altman, and Ive. That video has been scrubbed from its website and social media channels due to the lawsuit and has not returned. “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,” the blog post states.
