OpenAI - the "father" of ChatGPT - has just completed an internal share sale deal, raising the company's valuation to 500 billion USD. This number helps OpenAI surpass Elon Musk's SpaceX, becoming the world's most valuable startup, despite not yet making a profit.
The deal allows current and former employees to sell shares to investors with a total value of about $6.6 billion. The list includes Thrive Capital, softBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi's MGX fund and T. Rowe Price. This new valuation is much higher than the $300 billion in the capital call round led by softBank at the beginning of the year, reflecting the global fever with artificial intelligence.
Despite not yet generating a profit, OpenAI is the focus of the AI infrastructure boom, signing a major contract with Oracle and SK Hynix to develop a data center and AI services. The company is also preparing a turning point when negotiating with Microsoft on transitioning to a joint stock company model for the benefit of the community.
OpenAI was established in 2015 with the mission of developing AI to serve humanity. However, a close partnership with Microsoft since 2019 has pushed the company into a strong commercialization direction, creating conflict with Musk - now a rival, who sued OpenAI for saying the company was violating its original commitments.
Human resource competition is also a big challenge, as Meta and other corporations spend big to recruit top AI researchers. Selling internal shares not only attracts new capital but also creates liquidity for employees, encouraging them to stick together. The volume of shares sold is lower than the allowable level, showing that many people still believe in OpenAI's long-term prospects.
In the context of Google and Anthropic accelerating, OpenAI is constantly launching new products. In August, the company launched GPT-5 - its most powerful AI model, and released two open, free AI models that can simulate human thinking, in order to maintain its leading position under competitive pressure.
