OpenAI eyes $500 billion valuation in new share sale talks

OpenAI is in discussions with investors over a potential secondary share sale that could value the company at $500 billion, a move that would position it ahead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX as the most valuable private technology company globally, Financial Times reports.

The maker of ChatGPT is currently finalising its latest fundraising round — a $40 billion investment led by SoftBank, which has set its valuation at $300 billion. However, according to individuals familiar with the company's strategy, OpenAI has already begun conversations with investors, including Thrive Capital, about a share sale at nearly double that valuation.

If successful, the deal would see OpenAI surpass SpaceX, which was most recently valued at around $400 billion.

Sources indicate that the planned sale would allow both current and former OpenAI employees to sell shares in the company. The exact valuation for the secondary offering has not been finalised, and the volume of shares sold will depend on investor demand. However, one person familiar with the matter suggested that the deal is expected to significantly exceed the $1.5 billion worth of stock OpenAI sold in a secondary transaction late last year.

This development reflects the extraordinary investment climate being driven by the artificial intelligence boom. Investors are flooding into AI start-ups with the expectation that the eventual market leader could achieve a trillion-dollar valuation.

Since releasing ChatGPT in late 2022, OpenAI has seen its annual recurring revenue (ARR) soar to $12 billion, and the company is forecasting ARR to reach $20 billion or more by the end of 2025, according to someone with insight into its financials.

Meanwhile, OpenAI’s competitor Anthropic has also seen significant growth, quadrupling its ARR to $4 billion this year. Anthropic is now seeking to raise at least $5 billion in funding at a $170 billion valuation. Both companies remain unprofitable due to the enormous costs associated with developing and operating advanced AI systems.

Tech giants have recently seen their market values climb by hundreds of billions of dollars as they commit to increased AI investment. Competition remains fierce in the race to provide AI tools capable of generating text, code, and images from simple user inputs.

On August 5, Anthropic released an update that improves the coding abilities of one of its leading models. OpenAI, for its part, launched “open-weight” models that will be freely available and customizable by developers.

OpenAI is also expected to debut its much-anticipated GPT-5 model later this month.

By Tamilla Hasanova