OpenAI Valuation Soars to $500 Billion, Crowned World’s Most Valuable “Unicorn”

TradingKey - According to the latest reports, OpenAI has completed a secondary transaction involving employee share sales, valuing the company at approximately $500 billion — surpassing SpaceX’s $400 billion valuation and making it the most valuable startup in the world.

In this private market deal, current and former employees collectively sold around $6.6 billion worth of shares. The buyer consortium includes prominent names such as Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and T. Rowe Price. While the final amount fell short of the company’s initial $10 billion target, the transaction strongly reflects capital markets’ high confidence in OpenAI’s future prospects and robust investor demand.

The move not only provides liquidity for employees but also serves as a critical retention tool amid fierce competition for AI talent. Tech giants like Meta are aggressively poaching researchers from OpenAI with massive compensation packages. By enabling equity value realization, OpenAI strengthens its ability to retain core technical teams.

Despite not yet being profitable, OpenAI continues to expand rapidly. Following major partnerships with Oracle and SK Hynix, the company announced last week a strategic alliance with NVIDIA: OpenAI plans to deploy at least 10 gigawatts (GW) of NVIDIA-powered AI systems, while NVIDIA will invest up to $100 billion in return.

At the same time, OpenAI is rolling out new products to solidify its technological lead. This week, the company launched Sora 2, an upgraded version of its video generation model, along with a companion social app. CEO Sam Altman described the release as marking a “GPT-3.5 moment” for video content creation.

Surging optimism around AI is fueling a powerful bull market, pushing tech stocks to record highs. After OpenAI’s new valuation was revealed, investors rushed into the sector, sending global semiconductor stocks soaring.

According to Bloomberg calculations, bullish sentiment drove the combined market capitalization of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) and Asian chip-focused indices to rise by over $200 billion on the latest trading day. South Korean chipmakers were among Thursday’s top gainers, helping push the KOSPI index to a new all-time high.