OpenAI in talks for share sale at $500B valuation, surpassing SpaceX

OpenAI is in an early stage for a share sale that can value the artificial intelligence giant at $500 billion, eclipsing SpaceX and marking a two-thirds jump from its last valuation of $300 billion.

First revealed by Bloomberg, the deal will involve existing investors like Thrive Capital and SoftBank purchasing shares from employees.

The possible decision is made as OpenAI faces strong competition from its rivals such as Meta which made aggressive efforts to poach AI talent with lucrative salaries (up to $100 million) and other benefits.

However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman denied this, claiming that the best talent is still at the company and that Meta has not taken “any of our best people.”

Beside Meta, another rival, Anthropic (founded by ex-OpenAI staff) is also seeking funding at a $170 billion valuation.

Before speculations of share sale, Altman also teased GPT-5 declaring it the next-generation AI model powering ChatGPT, signalling another leap in AI capabilities.

OpenAI also announced two open-source models to counter Meta and DeepSeek’s in the race to democratize AI.

The company is currently a non-profit organization with a profit-making arm but it is attempting to thrive for a complete for-profit business, although talks with key investor Microsoft remain unresolved.

Beyond software, OpenAI is also transitioning into AI hardware after acquiring Jony Ive’s startup, io, for $6.4 billion.

This move supports Altman’s vision of integrating 100 million AI “companions” into daily life with mass production expected by 2027.