Employees at OpenAI can now cash out a slice of their stock without waiting for a public listing. The company has repurchased $7B of shares in a tender offer, a deal first reported by Bloomberg that prices the frontier lab at $852B.
That valuation matches the figure from March, when OpenAI raised $122B from investors. In June the company filed confidentially with the SEC, a move most observers read as preparation for an IPO later this year. The tender does not cancel those plans, but it suggests the listing may not arrive as soon as some expected.
Altman has been candid about the rough stretch behind the company. Last month he wrote that the prior year was not its best, blaming himself, while predicting the next twelve months would be the strongest yet. The Wall Street Journal reported in April that OpenAI had missed internal revenue and user goals during its IPO sprint.
Buybacks of this kind have become routine in a startup economy where companies postpone public offerings for years, giving staff a way to monetize equity without an exchange listing. The timing also matters for competition: Anthropic was reported profitable earlier this year, and whoever goes public first may capture the market’s attention, putting pressure on OpenAI’s calendar.
