OpenAI completes $6.6 billion insider stock sale…company valued at $500 billion

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has completed an insider stock sale that valued the company at $500 billion (about 701 trillion won). With this stock sale, OpenAI became the startup with the highest valuation in the world.

On the 1st (local time), Bloomberg reported that OpenAI recently sold $6.6 billion (about 9.3 trillion won) worth of shares held by current and former employees to an investor group including Tribe Capital. The stock sale size originally approved by OpenAI was $10.3 billion, but the actual amount sold by current and former employees amounted to $6.6 billion. Bloomberg said, "It shows current and former employees' confidence in (OpenAI's) long-term viability."

OpenAI's valuation rose to $500 billion through this stock sale. This far exceeds the valuation of SpaceX, the privately held space company of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, at $400 billion. Earlier, OpenAI was valued at $300 billion in an investment round led by SoftBank earlier this year.

Revenue is also on the rise. OpenAI's revenue in the first half of this year was $4.3 billion (about 6 trillion won), up about 16% from the same period last year. According to U.S. information technology (IT) outlet The Information, OpenAI recently presented shareholders with an annual revenue target of $13 billion (about 18.2 trillion won) for this year in a financial report.