OpenAI has reportedly allowed employees to sell up to $30 million worth of shares each in a large secondary transaction that valued the artificial intelligence company at nearly $400 billion.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, more than 600 current and former employees participated in the transaction conducted in October 2025, collectively selling shares worth $6.6 billion.
The report said the secondary sale allowed eligible employees to liquidate portions of their equity holdings as investor interest in artificial intelligence companies continues to surge globally.
Around 75 participants reportedly sold the maximum permitted allocation of $30 million each during the transaction.
The liquidity event is considered one of the largest employee share sales in the artificial intelligence sector so far and comes at a time when OpenAI continues to see rapid growth in valuation and commercial adoption of its AI products.
The company has emerged as one of the most closely watched firms in the generative AI space following the widespread adoption of products such as ChatGPT and its enterprise AI offerings.
OpenAI’s valuation has risen sharply over the past two years amid growing demand for generative AI tools across businesses, developers and consumers. The company is backed by Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars into the AI startup and integrated OpenAI technologies across several of its products and services.
The reported secondary transaction did not involve the issuance of new shares by the company. Instead, it enabled existing and former employees to sell part of their holdings to investors through a structured liquidity programme.
Large private technology companies increasingly use secondary share sales to provide liquidity to employees without pursuing an immediate public listing.
The Wall Street Journal report said the transaction positioned hundreds of OpenAI employees among the earliest financial beneficiaries of the ongoing artificial intelligence boom.
OpenAI has not publicly commented on the reported details of the transaction or the valuation figure.
The company continues to expand its AI models, enterprise partnerships and infrastructure investments as competition intensifies across the global artificial intelligence industry.