OpenAI wraps $6.6 billion share sale at $500 billion valuation (www.cnbc.com)

OpenAI completed a secondary share sale worth $6.6 billion at a record $500 billion valuation, allowing current and former employees who’d held shares for more than two years to cash out. The deal—reported by Bloomberg and first targeted at $10.3 billion after an earlier $6 billion authorization—saw roughly two‑thirds of the available shares change hands. Investors named in reporting include Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer, Abu Dhabi’s MGX and T. Rowe Price. This is OpenAI’s second sizeable tender offer in under a year, following a $1.5 billion transaction with SoftBank in November. For the AI/ML community the sale is significant as a market benchmark and a signal about capital and talent dynamics: the $500 billion private valuation cements OpenAI as the world’s most valuable privately held company (surpassing SpaceX) and reflects a steep re‑rating from about $300 billion earlier this year. Secondary sales like this are increasingly used by AI startups (Stripe, Databricks, SpaceX) to retain and reward employees without an IPO, which helps OpenAI compete for scarce AI talent. Technically the move shows sustained investor appetite for AI assets at high private valuations and sets expectations for compensation, hiring, and liquidity pathways across the AI ecosystem.