ChatGPT’s continued popularity and ballooning user base is propelling OpenAI’s market value to new heights. The A.I. giant is in talks to sell shares held by current and former employees at a valuation of around $500 billion, potentially making it the most valuable privately held company in the world, surpassing TikTok parent ByteDance and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The proposed secondary stock sale, first reported by Bloomberg, would not bring new capital into OpenAI but would instead allow insiders to cash out—a common strategy used by fast-growing startups to retain talent and reward early employees. thrive capital, an existing investor in OpenAI, is reportedly in talks to lead the deal. If completed, the valuation jump would mark a nearly 67 percent increase from OpenAI’s last reported valuation of $300 billion in March, following a $40 billion financing round led by SoftBank.
OpenAI’s user base has surged alongside its valuation. ChatGPT recently surpassed 700 million weekly active users, up from 500 million in March, the company revealed this week. Users now exchange more than 3 billion messages daily on the chatbot, the company said.
OpenAI makes money primarily through ChatGPT subscription plans ($20 a month) and licensing its A.I. models to enterprise clients and developers. While OpenAI has not confirmed profitability, CNBC reported the company is on track to hit $20 billion in annual revenue by the end of this year—double what it projected just two months ago.
On Tuesday, OpenAI released two “open weight” reasoning models, which the company claims outperform similarly sized open models on reasoning tasks at a low cost. The company is also preparing to launch GPT-5, its most advanced language model to date.
In addition, in a move to expand government adoption, OpenAI recently struck a nominal $1-per-year licensing deal with U.S. federal agencies, enabling them to pilot and deploy OpenAI’s tools across various public-sector applications.
In May, OpenAI announced a $6.5 billion all-stock acquisition of io Products, an A.I. hardware startup co-founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive. The deal signals OpenAI’s ambitions to move beyond software and into A.I.-powered consumer devices.
OpenAI isn’t the only A.I. firm commanding sky-high valuations. Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees, is reportedly seeking a $170 billion valuation in its latest fundraising round. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s xAI, launched in 2023, is aiming for a valuation of up to $200 billion.