[NEW YORK] Current and former OpenAI employees plan to sell approximately US$6 billion worth of shares to an investor group that includes Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group and Dragoneer Investment Group, in a deal that values the ChatGPT maker at US$500 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The talks are early and the size of the share sale could still change, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The secondary share investment is on top of SoftBank’s commitment to lead OpenAI’s US$40 billion funding round, which values the company at US$300 billion, according to another source familiar with the deal. That round remains ongoing, with OpenAI recently securing US$8.3 billion from a syndicate of investors.
Representatives for Dragoneer and Thrive did not respond to requests for comment. Spokespeople for OpenAI and SoftBank declined to comment. All three firms are existing OpenAI backers.
The secondary share sale will give OpenAI employees a chance to get cash-rich amid a high-stakes talent war in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. Companies such as Meta Platforms are offering massive salaries to recruit AI talent from OpenAI and other startups. This year, several OpenAI employees have exited for Meta, including Shengjia Zhao, a co-creator of ChatGPT.
Allowing employees to sell shares is an important tool for startups trying to retain top talent, without requiring the company to go public or be acquired. In some cases, early investors also use these deals to sell down their stakes, though OpenAI investors are not eligible to do so in this round, according to a source familiar with the matter. Current and former employees who spent at least two years at the company are able to participate.
With its participation in the share sale, as well as its previous commitments, SoftBank is making a pivotal bet on the success of OpenAI. In addition to those deals, the Japanese conglomerate headed by Masayoshi Son recently closed a separate US$1 billion purchase of OpenAI employee shares at a US$300 billion valuation, according to a source familiar with the matter. Negotiations for that deal started before talks around the US$500 billion secondary valuation began, they said.
The US$500 billion valuation would make OpenAI the world’s most valuable startup, surpassing Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The company expects revenue to triple this year to US$12.7 billion, up from US$3.7 billion in 2024, Bloomberg has reported. And the secondary deal talks come on the heels of the release of its highly-anticipated GPT-5 model.
This week, OpenAI chief Sam Altman sat down with a group of reporters and shared his vision for the company, including that it wants to spend trillions of US dollars on the infrastructure required to run AI services in the “not very distant future”.
“You should expect a bunch of economists to wring their hands and say, ‘This is so crazy, it’s so reckless,’ and whatever,” Altman said. “And we will just be like, ‘You know what? Let us do our thing.’” BLOOMBERG
