OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company best known as the creator of ChatGPT, has reached a staggering valuation of $500 billion following a secondary share sale worth $6.6 billion. The deal, completed this week, involved current and former employees selling part of their equity stakes to some of the world’s most powerful investment firms, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The milestone cements OpenAI’s position as one of the most valuable privately held companies in the world, alongside tech giants like SpaceX and ByteDance. It also underscores the surging investor demand for artificial intelligence startups at the forefront of a technological revolution reshaping industries across the globe.
From $300 Billion to $500 Billion in Months
The $500 billion valuation represents a sharp jump from OpenAI’s last reported valuation of around $300 billion, highlighting the speed at which the company’s worth has ballooned. Earlier this year, reports surfaced of strong investor appetite for secondary shares in the company, with insiders indicating that demand had far outstripped supply.
The $6.6 billion transaction was part of a broader authorization by OpenAI to allow more than $10 billion worth of stock to be sold on the secondary market, giving employees and early backers a chance to cash out some of their holdings. Such transactions do not raise fresh capital for the company itself but provide liquidity to staff and early stakeholders.
According to the source, buyers in the deal included Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and U.S. investment manager T. Rowe Price. These firms are among the most influential global investors in technology, each with a track record of backing some of the world’s most successful startups.
While representatives for Thrive, SoftBank, Dragoneer, MGX, and T. Rowe Price declined to comment on the transaction, the deal marks another major win for SoftBank, which previously led a $40 billion primary funding round in OpenAI.
Surging Revenue and Explosive Growth
OpenAI’s financial performance has been equally impressive. According to The Information, the company generated about $4.3 billion in revenue during the first half of 2025 — already 16% higher than its total revenue for all of 2024. That explosive growth reflects the rapid adoption of its AI products, particularly ChatGPT and its enterprise-focused services, by individuals, businesses, and institutions worldwide.
The company’s core offering, ChatGPT, has become a household name since its launch in late 2022, amassing hundreds of millions of users and transforming the way people interact with AI. In addition to consumer applications, OpenAI has aggressively expanded into enterprise services, licensing its technology to Fortune 500 companies, governments, and startups alike.
This surge in usage has translated into soaring revenues, giving OpenAI one of the steepest growth trajectories in Silicon Valley history. The company’s ability to monetize its technology while maintaining user growth has been a central factor behind its escalating valuation.
A Fierce Battle for AI Talent
The record-breaking valuation comes at a time of intensifying global competition for artificial intelligence talent. Tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple are investing tens of billions of dollars to secure the best engineers, researchers, and executives in the field.
Meta, in particular, has made bold moves to position itself as a leader in advanced AI. The company recently invested billions in Scale AI, a data infrastructure startup, and made headlines by hiring 28-year-old Alexandr Wang, Scale’s co-founder and CEO, to head its newly formed “super-intelligence unit.” The high-profile recruitment has highlighted how aggressive compensation packages and long-term equity deals are being used to lure top talent away from rival firms.
For OpenAI, retaining its world-class talent pool is seen as crucial to maintaining its lead in the rapidly evolving industry. The secondary share sale is widely interpreted as a strategy to reward employees, giving them a financial windfall without forcing them to leave the company in search of liquidity.
A Defining Moment in the AI Boom
OpenAI’s rise from a nonprofit research lab founded in 2015 to a half-trillion-dollar company in just a decade is emblematic of the explosive growth of the AI sector. Its partnership with Microsoft, which has invested billions into the company and integrated OpenAI’s models into its products, has been instrumental in scaling its technologies globally.
The $500 billion valuation also places OpenAI in an elite group of private companies commanding valuations more commonly associated with stock market giants. For comparison, OpenAI is now worth more than Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, or ExxonMobil — three of the most influential publicly traded firms in the United States.
Yet, challenges loom on the horizon. Questions remain over how sustainable OpenAI’s business model will be as competition intensifies, particularly from Google’s DeepMind, Anthropic, and Meta’s expanding AI operations. At the same time, regulators across the United States, Europe, and Asia are beginning to scrutinize the ethical, privacy, and labor market implications of advanced AI systems.
Looking Ahead
For now, however, OpenAI’s momentum shows no signs of slowing. The company continues to roll out new capabilities for ChatGPT and its underlying GPT models, while expanding its reach into robotics, healthcare, education, and finance. Investors view the company as the front-runner in defining the future of AI, and the $500 billion valuation signals confidence that OpenAI can maintain its leadership position.
As artificial intelligence cements itself as one of the defining technologies of the 21st century, OpenAI’s rise to a half-trillion-dollar valuation marks a watershed moment. With billions in fresh investor support, surging revenues, and a workforce incentivized to stay the course, the company stands at the center of the global AI race.
Whether OpenAI can sustain this meteoric pace of growth and defend its dominance against fierce rivals will be the key question for the years ahead. For now, though, the company’s leap to $500 billion places it among the most valuable enterprises in history — and confirms that the AI revolution is just getting started.
