Artificial intelligence company OpenAI is reportedly in talks to launch a secondary stock sale that could value the company at $500 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg.
This proposed valuation would make OpenAI one of the most valuable privately held companies in the world, significantly increasing from its previous $300 billion valuation set during a March 2025 fundraising round.
The share sale, intended for current and former employees, would allow early contributors to realize gains while helping the company retain top talent in an increasingly competitive AI labor market. This move mirrors similar strategies employed by fast-growing tech companies like ByteDance, Databricks, and Ramp, which have used secondary transactions to reward staff and gauge updated market worth.
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This move comes as the company recently announced the launch of two open-weight AI reasoning models with similar capabilities to its O-series. The company described the models as “state of the art” when measured across several benchmarks for comparing open models. The launch marks OpenAI’s first open language model since GPT-2, which was released more than five years ago.
Explosive Growth in Users And Revenue
OpenAI’s dramatic valuation surge is underpinned by the exponential growth of ChatGPT, its flagship product. The company in a recent post announced that Weekly active users have surged to 700 million, up from 400 million in February and four times higher than the same period last year. The enterprise side has seen parallel success, with paying business clients rising to 5 million, compared to 3 million just two months ago.
OpenAI’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) has also surged, climbing to $13 billion, up from $10 billion in June, with projections to reach $20 billion by year-end. The company has doubled its revenue in just the first seven months of 2025, reflecting robust demand for its AI products across industries.
This financial momentum follows an $8.3 billion funding round backed by major investors including Dragoneer, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, and Fidelity. It’s part of a larger $40 billion round led by SoftBank, which has until the end of 2025 to complete its $22.5 billion commitment.
Notably, OpenAI is reportedly exploring structural changes, potentially moving away from its capped-profit model, which could pave the way for a future IPO. CFO Sarah Friar has indicated that a public offering would only occur when both the company and markets are ready.
Meanwhile, the company is reconnecting with the open-source community by releasing open-weight models for the first time since 2019, a strategic move aimed at staying competitive with rivals like Anthropic.
A New Era for AI Powerhouses
A $500 billion valuation would place OpenAI in the same league as private tech giants like SpaceX and ByteDance, emphasizing investor confidence in the transformative potential of generative AI. Despite operating at a net loss, OpenAI’s growth trajectory showcases the enormous value the marketplaces on leadership in artificial intelligence.
The continued evolution of ChatGPT, including upgrades like enhanced image-generation tools powered by GPT-4, has only accelerated user engagement. OpenAI’s COO Brad Lightcap recently shared that over 130 million users created 700 million images in just a few days after the feature launched earlier this year.
As OpenAI positions itself as a dominant force in the AI arms race, the market response to its potential half-trillion-dollar valuation will offer key insights into the next phase of the global AI boom.