OpenAI closes $7B tender offer at $852B valuation ahead of potential IPO
Tech Funding News Abhinaya Prabhu ● Covered by 2 sources
OpenAI let employees sell about $7B of stock at an $852B value. It paid for the buyback itself, which hints the IPO may not be close.
Based on reporting by Tech Funding News, Abhinaya Prabhu — read the original for the full story.
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OpenAI has finished a roughly $7 billion employee share sale, giving current and former staff a way to turn private stock into cash at an $852 billion valuation. Bloomberg first reported the deal, and CNBC and TechCrunch later confirmed the size and price.
The unusual part is who paid. In earlier employee tenders, OpenAI leaned on outside buyers such as Thrive Capital and SoftBank. This time, according to two people familiar with the matter, the company used its own cash to fund the repurchase.
That keeps the cap table cleaner and avoids bringing in fresh investors just to set another price on the company. It also suggests OpenAI can afford to spend heavily on liquidity without needing a new financing round to make it happen. That matters because a tender offer does not bring in operating capital; it just lets employees cash out some of the equity they’ve been sitting on.
The number itself is also telling because it didn’t move. OpenAI’s previous employee sale, in October 2025, was done at a $500 billion valuation. Before that, a smaller tender in November 2024 priced the company at $157 billion. This one stayed flat at $852 billion, and that is being read by some observers as a sign that a public listing is not around the corner, even though OpenAI filed confidentially with the SEC in June 2026.
Sam Altman has told staff he expects OpenAI to go public within a year, while other reporting says that could slip to 2027. He also told employees in July 2026 that the company had not had its best 12 months. Against that backdrop, funding the buyback itself looks less like a celebration and more like control: OpenAI deciding who gets liquidity, and when, before Wall Street gets a turn.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the sort of move only a company with absurd private-market leverage can pull off. OpenAI is acting like it wants the benefits of a public-company liquidity event without the nuisance of public-company scrutiny, which is very on brand for the current AI elite. The flat valuation matters more than the buyback size; no one spends $7 billion just to send a cheerful memo.
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