OpenAI has overtaken SpaceX as the world’s most valuable private company after a $6.6 billion share sale at a $500 billion valuation.
OpenAI’s new $500 billion valuation significantly surpasses its previous valuation of $300 billion and leapfrogs SpaceX’s $400 billion valuation.
Bloomberg reported that existing employees were given the opportunity to cash in some of their shares to meet strong investor demand.
Thrive Capital, Softbank, Dragoneer, MGX and T.Rowe Price were reported to have participated in the round.
Interestingly, OpenAI had reportedly set a limit of $10 billion in employee sales, and the fact that this wasn’t met suggests that OpenAI’s employees are confident in the longer-term valuation of the company.
OpenAI has been hit by competitors poaching their top staff with the lure of pay packages exceeding $100 million. The share sale will serve as an opportunity for those employees motivated by cash to realise their holdings and reduce the attraction of jumping ship to competitors such as Meta.
The $6.6bn employee share sale was the second by OpenAI in less than a year.
The share sale follows Nvidia’s commitment to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as part of a deeper strategic partnership to develop AI infrastructure.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has reached 700 million weekly users and is by far the most popular AI chatbot.