OpenAI in talks on share sale that could exceed value of SpaceX and reach half a trillion dollars

OpenAI, the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence pioneer behind ChatGPT, is reportedly engaged in early negotiations regarding the sale of shares held by current and former employees. Should the proposed transaction go ahead, it would value the company at an extraordinary $500 billion, surpassing the valuation of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The prospective deal marks a sizeable leap from OpenAI’s previous valuation of $300 billion, signifying a near two-thirds increase and positioning the firm as one of the globe’s most valuable technology businesses. Existing investors, including Thrive Capital, are among those who have shown interest in acquiring employee shares. Other prominent backers such as Japan’s SoftBank—lead investor in the $300 billion round—and Microsoft are also stakeholders. Both OpenAI and Thrive Capital have declined to comment on the ongoing talks.

Employee share sales have become a recognised mechanism in the technology sector, serving to both motivate staff and attract fresh capital. OpenAI faces mounting competitive pressure from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, which has been actively recruiting AI talent with lucrative signing bonuses reportedly reaching $100 million. Despite this, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman insists the firm has retained its top performers, refuting the notion that leading staff have been tempted away by such offers.

Rival firms continue to chase capital in the race to accelerate AI development. Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI staff, is seeking funds at a valuation of $170 billion. With the expense of training ever-more sophisticated machine learning models, substantial fundraising remains an ongoing requirement for all market participants.

Recent developments at OpenAI include an announcement from Altman regarding a forthcoming upgrade to the company’s foundational model, widely rumoured to be GPT5. In a further move to expand its influence, the firm has released two new open models, free for download and customisation, directly challenging similar offerings from Meta and China’s DeepSeek. Despite this, OpenAI’s primary business continues to rely on proprietary models licensed to businesses or available via subscription.

Structural changes may also be on the horizon for OpenAI, which operates as a non-profit with a profit-seeking arm. Talks about transitioning to a pure for-profit status are ongoing, with some friction reported with Microsoft, a major partner. The company is also venturing into hardware, having acquired the start-up io, founded by renowned designer Sir Jony Ive, for $6.4 billion. Plans are afoot for mass production of AI companions based on io technology, described by Altman as “the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen”, with manufacturing expected to start in 2027.