{"id":12728,"date":"2025-10-02T07:03:52","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T05:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/openai-hits-500-billion-valuation-after-share-sale-to-softbank-others\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:25:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:25:58","slug":"openai-hits-500-billion-valuation-after-share-sale-to-softbank-others","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/openai-hits-500-billion-valuation-after-share-sale-to-softbank-others\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI hits $500 billion valuation after share sale to SoftBank, others"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This represents a bump-up from its current valuation of $300 billion, underscoring OpenAI&#8217;s rapid gains in both users and revenue. Reuters reported details of the stock sale earlier in August.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the deal, OpenAI employees sold shares to a consortium of investors including Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi&#8217;s MGX and T. Rowe Price, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.<\/p>\n<p>The company had authorised sales of $10-billion-plus worth of stock on the secondary market, the source added. Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer, MGX and T. Rowe Price did not immediately respond to Reuters&#8217; requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The share sale adds to SoftBank&#8217;s earlier investment in OpenAI&#8217;s $40 billion primary funding round. The company generated around $4.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2025, about 16% more than it generated all of last year, the Information reported earlier this week.<\/p>\n<p>The sale comes at a time when tech giants are competing aggressively for artificial intelligence (AI) talent with lucrative compensation packages. Meta is notably investing billions in Scale AI and poached its 28-year-old Chief Executive Officer, Alexandr Wang, to lead its new super intelligence unit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12729,"template":"default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-12728","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has reached a valuation of $500 billion, following a deal in which current and former employees sold roughly $6.6 billion worth of shares, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.||OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has reached a valuation of $500 billion, following a deal in which current and former employees sold roughly $6.6 billion worth of shares, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.","published_date":"2025-10-02 00:00:00||2025-10-02 00:00:00","news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18192,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12728\/revisions\/18192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=12728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}