Joseph Velyan was consuming lunch at a restaurant along with his household when he noticed one thing extraordinary rolling down the road: a Koenigsegg Regera.
Solely 80 of those Swedish sports activities automobiles had been made — they usually can value as a lot as $4.65 million.
“I have been into automobiles nearly my entire life, and seeing a Koenigsegg was undoubtedly a dream of mine — particularly in public,” Velyan, who runs the automobile fan pages @norcal.storage on TikTok and Instagram advised Enterprise Insider. “I am going to automobile occasions and see some fairly uncommon automobiles typically, however that is for certain the rarest one I’ve seen, and it caught my eye immediately.”
He took a fast video of the automobile and posted it on-line in late April. But it surely wasn’t till greater than a month later, when he seemed again on the footage, that he observed one thing else fascinating: The driving force gave the impression to be Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. (Representatives for Sam Altman did not reply to a request for remark from BI.)
Like Velyan, Altman is a Automotive Man. In keeping with a Wall Avenue Journal story about his huge fortune, he owns a McLaren along with the Koenigsegg and drove F1 automobiles on a racetrack for enjoyable on trip along with his husband in Dubai.
He additionally has talked about proudly owning a Telsa. (This is likely to be amusing to Elon Musk, the previous good friend and present frenemy of Altman, who had an amused response to the video after Musk’s henchman good friend Jason Calacanis identified the irony of the top of a nonprofit driving such a elaborate automobile. (Musk’s beef with Altman is basically over how OpenAI has shifted from its nonprofit roots. And, after all, Altman has been an investor in corporations together with Reddit and Stripe, accounting for a fortune that is been estimated at round $3 billion.)
Within the video of Altman within the Koenigsegg, there’s one thing completely uncanny about seeing such an uncommon automobile — which appears to be like in contrast to anything and is able to going zero to 250 miles per hour in below 30 seconds — at a cease gentle in a busy pedestrian space. Velyan is true — you’d count on to see one thing like this at a automobile present or a observe, not a metropolis avenue in Napa, CA.
There’s one thing else type of bizarre — tech moguls, for as wealthy as they’re, do not usually drive extremely noticeably ostentatious automobiles.
Certain, they may personal a elaborate automobile of their assortment (Mark Zuckerberg reportedly has a $1.4 million Pagani Huayra), however you do not usually see them driving them previous a CVS in a supercar on a Tuesday.
Koenigseggs are so uncommon that there is a fan group that retains observe of every mannequin on a weblog known as Egg Registry. Primarily based on the distinctive all-white paint job of the automobile within the video, it appears prone to be No. 7232, which the followers on the weblog have traced to an proprietor in San Francisco. (BI could not independently confirm this.) They are saying it has been seen driving across the streets and displaying as much as a neighborhood automobile present.
The hoi polloi can typically be a bit of harsh on seeing shows of tech mogul wealth (simply test the feedback anytime Zuckerberg posts himself browsing). However on TikTok, lots of ChatGPT customers appear fairly glad for Altman and his automobile.
“This man helped me go chem 🙏 take pleasure in that Regera” wrote one individual.”
“Bro carried me by means of half of my lessons final yr I hope he enjoys that magnificence,” stated one other.
“Numerous assignments, numerous exams handed take pleasure in it bro.”
