According to informed sources, current and former employees of OpenAI plan to sell approximately $6 billion worth of stock to an investor group consisting of Thrive Capital, SoftBank, and Dragoneer Investment Group. This transaction will value the ChatGPT manufacturer at $500 billion.
 
The above-mentioned individuals stated that the negotiations are still in the early stages, and the scale of the stock offering may still change. In addition, SoftBank has promised to lead OpenAI's $40 billion funding plan, which will value OpenAI at $300 billion. According to another person familiar with the transaction, this round of financing is still ongoing, and OpenAI recently received $8.3 billion in funding from an investor consortium.
 
This secondary stock offering will provide OpenAI employees with the opportunity to earn substantial income, as they face enormous salary pressure in the fiercely competitive artificial intelligence industry. Companies like Meta (META. US) are offering high salaries to compete for artificial intelligence talent from OpenAI and other startups. This year, several OpenAI employees have switched to Meta, including Shengjia Zhao, co-founder of ChatGPT.
 
Allowing employees to sell shares is an important means for startups to retain top talent without the need for the company to go public or be acquired. In some cases, early investors may also reduce their holdings through such transactions, but according to a source familiar with the matter, OpenAI investors are not eligible to do so in this round of trading. And current and former employees who have worked in the company for at least two years can participate.
 
By participating in this stock offering and previous commitments, SoftBank has high hopes for OpenAI's success. In addition to these transactions, the Japanese conglomerate led by Masayoshi Son recently completed a $1 billion acquisition of OpenAI employee stock at a valuation of $300 billion, according to a source familiar with the matter. They stated that negotiations for the transaction had already begun prior to the negotiations surrounding a secondary valuation of $500 billion.
 
A valuation of $500 billion will make OpenAI the most valuable startup in the world, surpassing Elon Musk's SpaceX. The company expects its revenue to double this year, reaching $12.7 billion, compared to $3.7 billion in 2024. The follow-up transaction negotiations were conducted after the highly anticipated release of its GPT-5 model.
 
This week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spoke with a group of journalists and outlined the company's vision, which includes plans to invest trillions of dollars in building the infrastructure needed to run artificial intelligence services in a "fairly short period of time" in the future.