OpenAI's ChatGPT Surpasses Elon Musk's X To Rank Sixth Most-Visited Website Globally — Sam Altman Says, 'Still A Long Way To Go To Run Down Google'

OpenAI's AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT’s rise in web traffic has propelled it past Elon Musk's X and Yahoo, making it the sixth most-visited website globally in January 2025.

What Happened: Last week, Similarweb posted its latest desktop traffic rankings for January 2025. 

The latest rankings reveal that Alphabet Inc.'s GOOG GOOGL Google continues to dominate with a 29.21% traffic share, followed by YouTube at 20.40%.

Meta Platforms, Inc.'s META Facebook holds the third spot with 5.08%, while WhatsApp and Instagram are fourth and fifth, respectively.

See Also: Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Pays Trump $25 Million To Settle Lawsuit Over Facebook, Instagram Ban After Jan. 6 Riot: ‘A Big Year For Redefining Our Relationships With Governments’

ChatGPT follows closely with a 2.33% traffic share, showing a notable month-over-month increase of 5.91%.

X, formerly Twitter ranks seventh with a 1.92% traffic share, and Yahoo is eighth at 1.88%. Reddit Inc. RDDT and Netflix Inc. NFLX complete the top ten list.

Reacting to the ranking, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to X, and said, "Man, still a long way to go to run down Google."  

Similarweb also revealed the top 10 apps in the U.S. (iPhone) in January: DeepSeek – AI Assistant, ChatGPT, Threads, Block Blast!, TurboTax: File Your Tax Return, T-Life, Google, Google Gemini, Flip: Watch, Create, Shop and Temu: Shop Like a Billionaire.

Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox.

Why It’s Important: In December 2022, almost a month after ChatGPT had its public release, it was reported Google had declared a “code red,” seeing it posing a threat to its search dominance. 

In October 2024, OpenAI further challenged Google by unveiling ChatGPT Search, enabling users to access real-time information, a feature traditionally dominated by search engines.

By December, OpenAI expanded this feature to all users, including those on the free tier, enhancing its accessibility and reach.

Meanwhile, Musk, who co-founded OpenAI and then left in 2018, has reportedly made a $97.4-billion bid to regain control of the company.

Photo by jamesonwu1972 on Shutterstock

Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link.

Read Next:

• Apple’s iPad Turns 15 Today: Here’s A Throwback To When Steve Jobs Explained Called It The ‘Third Category’ After Phones And Notebooks

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.