OpenAI has reached $500 billion valuation after a secondary share sale, enabling current and former employees to sell approximately $6.6 billion worth of stock.
This marks a rise from an earlier $300 billion valuation in 2025, making OpenAI the most valuable private company worldwide, surpassing SpaceX’s $400 billion valuation, ByteDance’s ($330 billion) and AI competitors, such as Anthropic’s ($183 billion).
The secondary sale involved SoftBank, Thrive Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and T. Rowe Price. Though OpenAI authorised over $10 billion in stock sales on the secondary market, about two-thirds of that was ultimately traded.
Beyond AI model development, OpenAI is expanding infrastructure through its Stargate project in partnership with Oracle and SoftBank, aiming to build an additional 4.5 gigawatts of AI data centre capacity valued at over $300 billion over five years. The initiative includes five new U.S. data centres, bringing total planned capacity to nearly 7 gigawatts.
Recently, the company has also launched “OpenAI for Countries,” a global program assisting nations in building AI infrastructure grounded in democratic principles, focusing on customised ChatGPT services supporting local languages, cultures, and data sovereignty.
