OpenAI staffers plan to sell $6B worth of shares to investors: report

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images News

OpenAI employees and former staffers apparently plan to sell up to $6B worth of shares to an investor group, which will propel the company's valuation to a staggering $500B, according to Bloomberg.

The deal would make OpenAI the most valuable private company on the planet by a wide margin. OpenAI is currently valued at about $300B, which is the same as TikTok-maker ByteDance (BDNCE [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/BDNCE]). The only private company with a higher valuation is Elon Musk's SpaceX, which is valued at $350B.

The investor group includes SoftBank (OTCPK:SFTBY [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/SFTBY]), which is a core backer of OpenAI, along with Thrive Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group, according to the report [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-15/openai-staffers-to-sell-6-billion-in-stock-to-softbank-other-investors], citing people familiar with the deal. The share sale is at least partially a type of reward system intended to help OpenAI retain its employees. The plan is still in its early stages and it could change.

Tech companies are spending top dollar to attract top-tier AI talent. For example, Meta Platforms (META [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/META]) has steadily assembled a high-end team of AI experts from rivals such as OpenAI, Apple (AAPL [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/AAPL]), Google (GOOG [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GOOG])(GOOGL [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/GOOGL]) and Anthropic to staff its Superintelligence Labs [https://seekingalpha.com/news/4473705-meta-continues-to-stack-its-superintelligence-labs-as-it-snags-multimodal-expert-from-apple-report].

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