OpenAI soars to $500 billion valuation, topping SpaceX

OpenAI has completed a deal to help employees sell shares in the company at a $500 billion valuation, propelling the ChatGPT-owner past Elon Musk’s SpaceX to become the world’s largest startup.

- SHIRIN GHAFFARY

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. OpenAI has completed a deal to help employees sell shares in the company at a $500 billion valuation.

(AFP)

Current and former OpenAl employees sold about $6.6 billion of stock to investors, including Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group Corp, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi’s MGX and T. Rowe Price, a person familiar with the transaction said. That boosted the US company’s price tag well past its previous $300 billion level during a SoftBank-led financing round earlier this year.

That rapid rise underscores the investment frenzy surrounding the leaders of a technology with the potential to transform global industry and economies. Sam Altman’s OpenAI is one of several companies including Nvidia Corp now leading a global push to build data centres and develop artificial intelligence services, an undertaking that’s expected to cost trillions of dollars. Though it’s yet to turn a profit, the US startup is helping fuel that infrastructure boom by inking mega-sized deals with the likes of Oracle Corp and SK Hynix Inc.