- OpenAI is in talks with UAE funds and BlackRock to anchor a round of at least $30B.
- The $1.4T pre-money price is presented as fixed, and no lead investor is chosen.
- The round would come six months after OpenAI’s $122B raise at $852B.
OpenAI has ruled out going public in 2026. It is now in talks with funds from the United Arab Emirates and BlackRock to anchor a private round of at least $30 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Abu Dhabi’s MGX, an AI investor backed by Mubadala and G42, is among the UAE funds. They would form a syndicate and have discussed investing up to $10 billion together, one person told Bloomberg. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is in talks to join them.
The price is the unusual part. OpenAI is presenting a $1.4 trillion pre-money valuation as fixed, according to Bloomberg’s sources, even though it has not settled on a lead investor. Bloomberg first reported the $30 billion target on September 29, and Tech Funding News covered that report on September 30.
Why MGX, and why BlackRock
MGX has invested in earlier rounds of both OpenAI and Anthropic, and it joined OpenAI’s March round. Bloomberg reported in June that it had raised close to $50 billion from sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and other institutions to spend on AI infrastructure and technology.
MGX and BlackRock are also co-founders of the AI Infrastructure Partnership, alongside Global Infrastructure Partners and Microsoft, so the pairing is not a surprise.
OpenAI has also sounded out existing backers. The University of California’s endowment has discussed the round, and Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz have considered adding capital.
What $1.4 trillion buys
The figure is 64% above the $852 billion post-money valuation from March, and about 17% above the $1.2 trillion OpenAI was reportedly weighing when TFN reported the Financial Times story on September 16. Pre-money excludes the new cash. Add $30 billion and the post-money figure is about $1.43 trillion. At that price, OpenAI would again be valued above Anthropic’s $965 billion.
The revenue case rests on a run rate, not booked sales. Axios reported on September 29 that OpenAI’s annualised run rate is nearing $70 billion, up more than 70% since the start of the third quarter. By TFN’s calculation, $1.4 trillion is about 20 times that figure. Axios could not learn OpenAI’s expenses.
Altman has said why a listing is off the table. He told Fortune that right now is “an ill-advised moment to go public,” citing safety concerns, Reuters reported. That sits awkwardly beside Amazon’s commitment in the March round.
TFN reported that $35 billion of Amazon’s $50 billion depends on OpenAI going public or reaching an artificial general intelligence milestone.
Anthropic sets the yardstick
When Anthropic filed for its IPO on June 1, PitchBook senior late-stage company research analyst Harrison Rolfes told TFN that OpenAI “now has a free option to watch how institutional investors react to audited frontier AI financials before committing to its own price.”
Rolfes added a caveat: the option is worth less if OpenAI is already deep into its own SEC review. OpenAI has confidentially filed its IPO paperwork, and in August it completed a $7 billion employee tender offer at an unchanged $852 billion.
Anthropic raised $65 billion at $965 billion in May. Reuters, which has seen its prospectus, reported on September 28 a net loss of about $42 billion in 2025 on nearly $4.6 billion in revenue. Roughly $34 billion of that loss was an accounting charge, leaving an operating loss of about $8.1 billion. The filing also lists $518 billion in cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations.
Reuters said the debut is likely after the November US midterm elections, at a valuation target above $2 trillion. Anthropic has reportedly picked Nasdaq, according to Business Insider. Anthropic has not confirmed it.
So the question for anyone writing a cheque is whether $1.4 trillion is a price or a position. With no lead investor, nobody has yet tested it.
