OpenAI Employees Plan $6 Billion Share Sale at $500 Billion Valuation

OpenAI is in talks to let current and former staff sell about $6 billion worth of shares. The group of buyers includes SoftBank Group (SFTBY), Thrive Capital, and Dragoneer Investment Group. If the deal goes through, it would place the company at a $500 billion value, which is up from $300 billion earlier this year.

At the same time, OpenAI is also running a separate $40 billion funding round led by SoftBank. The firm has already secured $8.3 billion from investors and expects SoftBank to add $22.5 billion by the end of the year. By setting up both a primary raise and a secondary sale, the company is seeking to raise funds while also letting staff cash out a part of their equity.

_{Sam Altman is hitting two birds with one stone.}

Revenue has been climbing at a fast pace. OpenAI doubled its revenue in the first seven months of 2025, which put it on an annual run rate of $12 billion. By the end of the year, the number is projected to hit $20 billion. This growth has been closely linked to strong use of ChatGPT, which has seen weekly active users rise to about 700 million.

In fact, this move is like hitting two birds with one stone; the secondary sale gives staff a chance to gain from the rise in value without the firm going public, but also helps the company keep workers in place while rivals such as Meta (META) try to draw talent away. With staff able to sell at a high mark, the company can ease some of the pressure of talent competition.

If completed, the deal would make OpenAI one of the most valuable private firms in the world. For context, the figure would even put it above SpaceX, which is valued at around $400 billion. Investors see the company’s rapid climb in revenue and users as a sign of continued demand in the field of artificial intelligence.

With TipRanks’ Comparison Tool, we looked at several well-known companies that employ chatbots similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.