Pre-IPO Cash-Out: OpenAI Completes $7 Billion Employee Equity Transaction

OpenAI has completed a secondary market tender offer worth approximately $7 billion, allowing current and former employees to cash out part of their holdings at an $852 billion valuation. This marks the company's latest liquidity arrangement before its initial public offering (IPO), further solidifying its position as one of the most valuable private technology companies globally.

As confirmed by CNBC, this tender offer was planned as early as March when OpenAI completed its $122 billion financing round, with the specific scale first disclosed by Bloomberg. This transaction provides employees with an exit channel prior to the IPO and alleviates the growing demand for equity liquidity following the rapid rise in the company's valuation.

OpenAI secretly filed its prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June this year but has not yet announced a specific listing schedule. As the sale of employee shares continues, the market views this as a signal that the company is gradually refining its pre-IPO capital market arrangements.

Secondary Sales Intensify as IPO Preparations Advance in Parallel

This is not the first time OpenAI has arranged for employee cash-outs through tender offers. The company previously completed two similar transactions in 2024, sized at approximately $1.5 billion and a $6.6 billion tender offer in October 2024, respectively. Including this latest ~$7 billion deal, the total scale of the three transactions exceeds $15 billion.

For OpenAI, which has not yet gone public, such transactions satisfy employee liquidity needs while allowing for phased share sales before the IPO. Meanwhile, major competitor Anthropic is also in the pre-listing stage, with neither company having officially announced their listing plans.