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- OpenAI eyes $500 billion valuation in potential employee share sale, source says</p>
<p>Krystal Hu and Shivani TannaAugust 5, 2025 at 9:44 PM</p>
<p>By Krystal Hu and Shivani Tanna</p>
<p>(Reuters) -ChatGPT maker OpenAI is in early-stage discussions about a stock sale that would allow employees to cash out and could value the company at about $500 billion, a source familiar with the matter said.</p>
<p>That would represent an eye-popping bump-up from its current valuation of $300 billion, with the sale underscoring both OpenAI's rapid gains in users and revenue as well as the intense competition among artificial intelligence firms to secure talented workers.</p>
<p>The transaction, which would come before a potential IPO, would allow current and former employees to sell several billion dollars worth of shares, said the source, who requested anonymity because the talks are private.</p>
<p>Bolstered by its flagship product ChatGPT, OpenAI doubled its revenue in the first seven months of the year, reaching an annualized run rate of $12 billion, and is on track to reach $20 billion by year-end, the source added.</p>
<p>Microsoft-backed OpenAI has about 700 million weekly active users for its ChatGPT products, a surge from about 400 million in February.</p>
<p>The share sale talks come on the heels of OpenAI's primary funding round announced earlier this year, which aims to raise $40 billion, led by Japan's SoftBank Group.</p>
<p>SoftBank has until the end of the year to fund its $22.5 billion portion of the round, but the remainder has been subscribed at a valuation of $300 billion, the source said.</p>
<p>Tech giants are competing aggressively for AI talent with lucrative compensation packages. Meta is notably investing billions in Scale AI to poach its 28-year-old CEO, Alexandr Wang, so that he can lead its new super intelligence unit.</p>
<p>Unlisted firms such as ByteDance, Databricks and Ramp have also used private share sales to help update a company's valuation and reward long-term employees.</p>
<p>Existing investors in OpenAI, including Thrive Capital, are in discussions to participate in the employee share sale, the source said.</p>
<p>Thrive Capital declined to comment. Bloomberg first reported the potential sale.</p>
<p>OpenAI is working on a significant corporate restructuring that would move away from its current capped-profit model and open the door for an initial public offering in the future.</p>
<p>Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said in May, however, that an IPO would only come when the company and markets were ready.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Krystal Hu in New York and Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Edwina Gibbs)</p>
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