DeepSeek vs OpenAI: Founders, CEOs and History
DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng and is led by Liang Wenfeng. OpenAI was founded in 2015 by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman and is led by Sam Altman.
Company facts
Founders
DeepSeek
Liang Wenfeng
Liang Wenfeng is a highly influential Chinese quantitative investor and the founder of the artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek.
OpenAI
Sam Altman
Sam Altman co-chaired OpenAI at its 2015 founding and became CEO in 2019. He negotiated the Microsoft partnership, oversaw the ChatGPT launch in 2022, survived the board's brief attempt to remove him in November 2023, and led the October 2025 recapitalization…
Elon Musk
Elon Musk was an early co-chair and funder of OpenAI and left its board in February 2018. He later founded rival xAI in 2023 and sued OpenAI, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, arguing the company abandoned its nonprofit mission.
Greg Brockman
Greg Brockman left his role as Stripe CTO to co-found OpenAI in 2015 and serves as president.
Ilya Sutskever
Ilya Sutskever was OpenAI's chief scientist from 2015 to May 2024, overseeing work behind the GPT series and ChatGPT. He voted to remove Sam Altman in November 2023, then said he regretted it. After leaving OpenAI he co-founded Safe Superintelligence Inc.
CEOs and their tenures
DeepSeek
- Liang Wenfeng2023–present
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Sets DeepSeek's research direction and has led every major release from DeepSeek-LLM to V4.
Source
OpenAI
- Greg Brockman2015–present
President and Co-founder
Former Stripe CTO; returned from a 2024 sabbatical and remains president.
Source - Mira Murati2018–2024
Chief Technology Officer and interim CEO (former)
Served as interim CEO for two days in November 2023; left OpenAI in 2024.
Source - Sam Altman2019–present
Chief Executive Officer
Co-founder and CEO who turned OpenAI from a research lab into a consumer and enterprise platform; briefly removed by the board in November 2023 and reinstated days later.
Source - Fidji Simo2025–2026
CEO of Applications (former)
Former Instacart CEO who ran ChatGPT and other applications; stepped down from the full-time role in July 2026 for health reasons and stayed on as an adviser.
Source - Vijaye Raji2025–present
CTO of Applications
Statsig founder who joined via the 2025 acquisition to head product engineering for ChatGPT and Codex.
Source
Timeline: DeepSeek and OpenAI side by side
2015OpenAI
OpenAI founded as a nonprofit
OpenAI launched in December 2015 as a nonprofit AI research lab.
2019OpenAI
Capped-profit entity and Microsoft deal
OpenAI created a capped-profit subsidiary and received a $1 billion investment from Microsoft.
2022OpenAI
ChatGPT launch
ChatGPT launched on November 30, 2022 and reached 100 million users faster than any prior consumer app.
2023DeepSeek
DeepSeek spun out of High-Flyer
High-Flyer announced an AGI lab in April 2023; it became the independent company DeepSeek on 17 July 2023.
2023DeepSeek
First open models
Released DeepSeek-Coder and DeepSeek-LLM 67B in November 2023.
2023OpenAI
Board crisis
The nonprofit board removed Sam Altman in November 2023; he returned as CEO within days and the board was rebuilt.
2024DeepSeek
DeepSeek-V2 introduces MLA
May 2024 release introduced Multi-head Latent Attention and DeepSeekMoE and triggered a Chinese API price war.
2024DeepSeek
DeepSeek-V3 launched
December 2024: 671B-parameter MoE model; final training run reported at ~$5.6M of H800 GPU time.
2025DeepSeek
DeepSeek-R1 and chatbot launch
January 2025 reasoning model rivalled OpenAI o1; the app hit No. 1 on the US App Store and Nvidia fell ~17% in a day.
2025DeepSeek
V3.1 and V3.2
V3.1 added a hybrid thinking/non-thinking mode; V3.2 introduced sparse attention for long-context efficiency.
2025OpenAI
Acquired Jony Ive's io
OpenAI agreed to buy hardware startup io for just under $6.5 billion in an all-equity deal.
2025OpenAI
Recapitalization into OpenAI Group PBC
In October 2025 the for-profit became a public benefit corporation controlled by the OpenAI Foundation; Microsoft received about 27%.
2026DeepSeek
DeepSeek-V4 family
24 April 2026: V4-Pro and V4-Flash released as MIT-licensed open weights with a 1M-token context; V4-Pro reached general availability in August 2026.
2026DeepSeek
First outside funding and IPO preparation
June 2026 Series A of ~50 billion yuan (~$7.4B) at a valuation near $50B; Bloomberg reported IPO preparations in July for a 2027 debut.
2026DeepSeek
Huawei Ascend software toolkit
30 September 2026: open-sourced programming tools for Huawei Ascend chips, an alternative to Nvidia's CUDA stack.
2026OpenAI
$122B funding round
OpenAI closed $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation on March 31, 2026.
2026OpenAI
Run rate nears $70B
Axios reported in September 2026 that annual recurring revenue was nearing $70 billion.
Acquisitions
DeepSeek
No verified acquisitions are listed.
OpenAI
- io Products2025$6.5B
- Statsig2025$1.1B
- Rockset2024Undisclosed
- Global Illumination2023Undisclosed
Questions about DeepSeek vs OpenAI
Who is the CEO of DeepSeek and OpenAI?
DeepSeek is led by Liang Wenfeng and OpenAI is led by Sam Altman. Both serve as the top executive responsible for the company's strategy, operations, and financial performance.
When was DeepSeek founded vs OpenAI?
OpenAI was founded in 2015 — 8 years before DeepSeek, which was founded in 2023. OpenAI's longer operating history gives it a deeper track record but also potentially more institutional inertia compared to the younger DeepSeek.
How many employees does DeepSeek have compared to OpenAI?
DeepSeek employs approximately 160 people, while OpenAI employs approximately 4,500. OpenAI has the larger workforce at 4,500 employees, compared to DeepSeek's 160. A higher headcount does not necessarily imply greater efficiency — it often reflects differences in business model (e.g., manufacturing vs. software).
Where are DeepSeek and OpenAI headquartered?
DeepSeek is headquartered in China and OpenAI is headquartered in United States. Their different home markets mean they may face different regulatory frameworks, tax regimes, and currency exposure.
Who founded DeepSeek and OpenAI?
DeepSeek was founded by Liang Wenfeng. OpenAI was founded by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever.
Which company has a longer operating history — DeepSeek or OpenAI?
OpenAI has been operating for approximately 11 years, making it the more established of the two companies. DeepSeek has been in operation for around 3 years. A longer operating history often signals greater institutional resilience and brand recognition, though it can also mean slower adaptation to new market conditions.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the DeepSeek vs OpenAI overview