OpenAI reaches $500B valuation following stock deal

OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, is now valued at about $500 billion after current and former employees sold roughly $6.6 billion in shares.

A group of investors buying OpenAI shares includes SoftBank, Thrive Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and T. Rowe Price, Bloomberg reports. The deal made OpenAI the largest startup in the world, surpassing SpaceX, ByteDance, and Anthropic.

The total stock sold in the secondary deal was less than the $10 billion the company had made available, according to a source cited by Bloomberg. This suggests that many current and former employees chose to hold onto their shares, reflecting confidence in the company’s long-term future.

OpenAI becomes the world's biggest private company with a $500 billion valuation. Source: Bloomberg

OpenAI’s share sale coincides with strong revenue growth and heavy spending. In the first half of 2025, the company generated about $4.3 billion in revenue, a 16% increase over all of 2024, while investing heavily in research and infrastructure. Operating losses for the period totaled $7.8 billion. Under its partnership with Microsoft, OpenAI must share 20% of its revenue, though it expects that figure to decline over time - a change projected to save $50 billion by 2030. Stock-based equity compensation also rose sharply, reaching $2.5 billion in the first six months, nearly double the same period a year earlier.

At the same time, OpenAI faces legal scrutiny, including a lawsuit from xAI, the AI company founded by Elon Musk, a former OpenAI co-founder. The case involves alleged misappropriation of code and data, highlighting the growing legal and competitive challenges in the AI sector.

OpenAI’s high valuation and recent financial activity underscore the intense competition in the AI market, with rivals including Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s DeepMind, Alibaba’s Qwen, and DeepSeek, developed by Hangzhou DeepSeek AI. In August 2025, OpenAI released GPT-5, its most capable model to date, designed to strengthen its position in the global AI market.

OpenAI hits $500B valuation after $6.6B share sale