IT News Correspondent
By Juliet Orbo
OpenAI, the developer behind the revolutionary chatbot ChatGPT, has reportedly reached a record-breaking valuation of $500 billion following a high-profile secondary share sale to investors.
According to reports from Bloomberg and the Financial Times, the deal involves OpenAI employees selling around $6.6 billion worth of shares to a group of major backers, including Japanese investment giant SoftBank, venture capital firms Thrive Capital and Dragoneer, and Abu Dhabi’s state-backed AI investment company MGX.
If confirmed, the transaction would cement OpenAI as the most valuable startup in the world — overtaking Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is valued at roughly $400 billion.
SoftBank, which has a history of making bold investments in cutting-edge technology, had already pledged up to $40 billion to OpenAI by the end of 2025 under certain conditions. A previous March deal had valued the company at $300 billion, making Thursday’s reported $500 billion valuation a dramatic leap in less than a year.
OpenAI, led by CEO Sam Altman, has seen explosive growth since the 2022 launch of ChatGPT, which stunned the public with its human-like text generation. The company reportedly earned $4.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2025 alone, according to specialist outlet The Information.
However, OpenAI’s rapid expansion comes with massive spending commitments. The company is expected to invest hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years to build the computing infrastructure needed to support its AI models.
The news comes as the broader generative AI industry attracts unprecedented levels of capital. Rival startup Anthropic recently raised $13 billion at a $183 billion valuation, while chip giant Nvidia — now worth about $4.5 trillion — has committed up to $100 billion in funding to AI firms like OpenAI and cloud providers such as CoreWeave.
Despite warnings from some analysts about a potential “AI bubble,” investor interest in the sector shows no sign of slowing, with OpenAI now emerging as the undisputed leader of the generative AI race.
