OpenAI reportedly in talks for share sale at $500b valuation

OpenAI is in early talks to allow current and former employees to sell shares, potentially valuing the company at around US$500 billion, according to sources.

The firm, led by Sam Altman, previously raised funds at a US$300 billion valuation and is considering a secondary stock sale worth billions.

Existing investors, including Thrive Capital, are reportedly interested in buying shares from employees.

The company has secured US$8.3 billion as a second tranche in its ongoing US$40 billion financing round.

OpenAI is also preparing to release GPT-5 and has launched new AI models, while facing talent competition from firms like Meta.

ChatGPT is expected to reach 700 million weekly active users this week, with the app recently crossing 3 billion daily user messages.

OpenAI is also in ongoing negotiations with Microsoft about their partnership and future tech access.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Secondary sales become critical retention tools as unicorns stay private longer

OpenAI’s proposed $500 billion secondary sale follows a growing trend where late-stage startups use employee stock sales to compete for talent without going public.

Secondary transactions have grown dramatically from $23 billion in 2011 to $105 billion in 2021, driven by companies staying private longer and creating liquidity pressure among early stakeholders1.

These sales allow employees to realize financial gains from their equity compensation, which becomes essential when companies like Meta are offering significant compensation packages to poach AI talent.

For OpenAI employees, a secondary sale at the $500 billion valuation would represent a 67% paper gain over the company’s previous $300 billion valuation just months earlier, providing substantial financial incentive to remain at the company.

2️⃣ OpenAI’s valuation trajectory reflects the extreme premium investors place on AI leadership

The proposed $500 billion valuation would make OpenAI worth more than 99.9% of all unicorn companies globally, where the total universe of 1,276 unicorns has a combined valuation of $4.4 trillion2.