OpenAI bought back $7 billion worth of shares from employees at the old price. The price has not risen since March.
OpenAI's valuation has remained unchanged over the past five months, according to the results of a share buyback / Photo: doomu / Shutterstock.com
OpenAI has completed a stock buyback of approximately $7 billion from current and former employees, according to Bloomberg. The company’s valuation under this deal was $852 billion, unchanged from its March funding round.
Details
OpenAI began preparing the share buyback offer after closing a record-breaking $122 billion funding round in March 2026, according to CNBC. The company itself acted as the buyer—it did not bring in any outside investors. Previously, shares held by employees of this pioneer of the AI era were purchased by Thrive Capital and SoftBank, among others, Bloomberg notes.
The sale of shares will allow early shareholders to receive cash before OpenAI goes public. The company has already conducted similar transactions: in 2024, its employees sold $1.5 billion worth of shares, and in October 2025, they sold $6.6 billion worth, with the startup valued at $500 billion. As a result, the company’s value has risen by 70% since last fall, but all of that growth occurred before March.
Resignations Among Top Management
Several high-ranking executives have left OpenAI in recent weeks. Chloe Bakalar, head of ethics; Johannes Heidecke, head of AI safety; and Joshua Achiem, chief futurist responsible for ensuring the company’s work aligns with its mission, have all resigned, according to the Financial Times.
Their departure coincided with the emergence of concerns about how OpenAI develops its neural networks. The startup came under pressure after admitting that a third-party company had hacked into its AI model during testing, the FT notes.
Anthropic Is Closer to Going Public
While OpenAI is preparing to postpone its IPO until 2027, unwilling to change its $1 trillion valuation target, its main rival is on the verge of going public. Anthropic, which is valued at $965 billion, plans to go public in September or early October 2026, according to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal.
According to them, Anthropic’s leadership is already meeting with potential investors to bolster their confidence in what could be the largest funding round in history and to convince them of the company’s high growth rates. Investors, meanwhile, are asking Anthropic questions about the popularity of cheaper Chinese models, tensions with the White House, and growing opposition to the construction of data centers in the U.S.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor
