OpenAI completes $7 billion employee share sale at $852 billion valuation ahead of potential IPO

OpenAI has completed a roughly $7 billion secondary share sale that gives current and former employees a chance to turn some of their paper wealth into cash, as the ChatGPT maker moves closer to what could become one of the largest public market debuts in history.

The transaction values OpenAI at $852 billion, the same valuation set during its record $122 billion funding round in March, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

There is one unusual twist. OpenAI bought the shares from current and former employees rather than bringing in outside investors for the tender offer, according to the report. That makes the transaction less about raising fresh capital and more about providing liquidity to people who have accumulated valuable equity during the company’s extraordinary rise.

“OpenAI has completed a deal to help employees sell roughly $7 billion worth of shares in the company ahead of a possible Wall Street debut,” Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

“The ChatGPT maker bought back shares from current and former employees rather than tapping outside investors for the tender offer, said two people, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the information is not public. The deal valued the startup at $852 billion, the people said, unchanged from its most recent funding round,” the report added.

The tender offer has been in the works since OpenAI closed its $122 billion financing in March. Giving employees a path to sell shares can ease pressure for liquidity at a company that has remained private through years of explosive growth.

It can serve another purpose: keeping employees from heading for the exits simply to monetize equity that has become enormously valuable.

OpenAI’s $7 billion share sale adds another piece to its pre-IPO puzzle

OpenAI’s latest transaction arrives at a pivotal point for the company. It confidentially filed paperwork for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June, setting the stage for a potential Wall Street debut. No public timeline has been announced.

At an $852 billion private valuation, an OpenAI IPO would instantly rank among the most closely watched technology listings ever. The company has grown from an AI research lab into the company behind ChatGPT, one of the products that pushed generative AI into mainstream use after its November 2022 launch.

That growth has required staggering amounts of capital. Training and operating advanced AI models requires chips, data centers and energy infrastructure at a scale few startups have ever attempted. OpenAI’s $122 billion March financing underscored just how much money investors are willing to commit to companies competing at the frontier of AI.

The $7 billion transaction continues a pattern.

CNBC also reported that OpenAI completed a $6.6 billion employee share sale in October at a $500 billion valuation, following a $1.5 billion tender offer in 2024. The latest deal means the implied value of the company has climbed by more than $350 billion from the October transaction.

That jump helps explain why employee liquidity has become such a significant issue. Early employees can hold stakes worth millions of dollars, yet those shares remain illiquid until a secondary transaction, acquisition or public listing provides a way to sell them.

OpenAI is not alone in preparing for life on the public markets. Anthropic, its closest private AI rival, has been taking steps of its own toward a possible IPO, raising the prospect that two of the defining AI companies of this era could eventually make their Wall Street debuts.

For OpenAI, the $7 billion tender offer removes some of the pressure to rush that process. Employees get liquidity today, and the company gets more flexibility over when it chooses to go public.

The bigger question is what happens when an $852 billion private company finally meets the public markets. At that valuation, OpenAI would arrive with expectations almost as enormous as the company itself.