OpenAI spent $7 billion of its own cash buying shares back from staff — and did not raise the price
OpenAI has completed a roughly $7 billion tender offer letting current and former employees sell stock, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The shares changed hands at a valuation of $852 billion, exactly where the company's $122 billion funding round left it in March. Two things stand out. The company used its own cash rather than bringing in outside investors, a break from earlier tenders where new backers bought in. And the valuation did not move in five months, after a run that took OpenAI from $157 billion in October 2024 to $300 billion, then $500 billion, then $852 billion. OpenAI filed confidentially with the SEC in June to prepare a possible listing, working with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan.
Why it mattersLetting staff cash out relieves exactly the pressure that pushes a company toward a hurried IPO, so this buys OpenAI time. But a flat price paid from its own balance sheet is the first time in two years that the number has stopped going up — and the market has been reading that number as the temperature of the whole AI boom.
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