OpenAI is exploring a secondary share sale that could value the Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence firm at about $500 billion, according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters.
The deal, still in early discussions, would give current and former employees an opportunity to cash out shares worth several billion dollars ahead of any initial public offering.
If finalised, the proposed valuation for OpenAI would be a sharp jump from the company’s existing $300 billion figure, stressing its rapid revenue growth and also the escalating race among global tech giants to attract and retain AI talent.
The surge has been driven largely by ChatGPT, OpenAI’s flagship product, which now has around 700 million weekly active users, up from 400 million in February and four times higher than last year. The company’s paying enterprise clients have grown to 5 million, compared to 3 million just two months ago.
Financially, OpenAI’s annual recurring revenue has climbed to $13 billion, from $10 billion in June, with expectations to hit $20 billion by year-end. The company doubled its revenue in the first seven months of the year and is expanding its product reach even as it navigates corporate changes.
The share sale discussions follow OpenAI’s recent $8.3 billion funding injection from investors including Dragoneer, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, and Fidelity.
This forms part of a $40 billion fundraising round led by Japan’s SoftBank Group, which has until the end of the year to complete its $22.5 billion commitment. The remainder has already been taken up at a $300 billion valuation, the source said.
The development is similar to private share sales by other high-growth technology firms such as ByteDance, Databricks, and Ramp, which have used such transactions to update market valuations and reward long-standing employees.
Existing OpenAI investors, including Thrive Capital, are said to be in talks to participate in the sale. Thrive declined to comment.
Competition for AI talent is at an all-time high. Meta, for example, is investing billions in Scale AI in a bid to lure its 28-year-old CEO, Alexandr Wang, to lead its new superintelligence division. Across the industry, lucrative compensation offers are becoming the norm for top engineers and researchers.
OpenAI, meanwhile, is preparing for some structural changes. Plans are underway to move away from its capped-profit model, potentially clearing the way for a public listing. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said in May that an IPO would happen only when both “the company and markets were ready.”
The company has also taken steps to reconnect with the open-source community, releasing open-weight models for the first time since 2019, a strategic move to counter competitors such as Anthropic.
A $500 billion valuation would place OpenAI among the most valuable privately held technology companies in history, rivalled only by firms like ByteDance and SpaceX.
For the AI sector, it would be another sign that the biggest players are not limited to building powerful systems but are also securing the financial firepower to dominate the global market for years to come.
