OpenAI Preps $6B Secondary Sale At $500B Valuation As Thrive, SoftBank Join Investor Talks

OpenAI is preparing a secondary stock sale worth about $6 billion that would value the company near $500 billion, CNBC reported Friday. The shares would come from current and former employees and be sold to investors, including SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Thrive Capital. Sources said the talks are early and subject to change, with Thrive potentially leading the round. Bloomberg first reported the discussions. The valuation reflects OpenAI’s rapid rise since launching ChatGPT in late 2022. The company raised $40 billion in March at a $300 billion valuation and added $8.3 billion earlier this month. OpenAI launched GPT-5 last week, touting it as smarter and faster across key domains, though some users criticized the rollout after losing access to earlier models. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted in a post on X that the company underestimated how much users valued features in the older model despite the newer model's overall stronger performance.