OpenAI has overtaken SpaceX to become the world’s most valuable startup, reaching a staggering $500 billion valuation following a secondary share sale, according to local media.
The report said current and former OpenAI employees sold about $6.6 billion worth of shares to investors including Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group Corp., Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and T. Rowe Price.
The transaction more than doubles OpenAI’s valuation from its previous $300 billion in April, which came after a $40 billion fundraising round led by SoftBank. The new figure pushes OpenAI past Elon Musk’s SpaceX, valued at roughly $451 billion, making it the world’s most valuable privately held company.
In April 2025, the company released GPT-4.1, a more powerful and cost-efficient version of its flagship model, offering enhanced reasoning and contextual understanding. The same month, reports surfaced that OpenAI was experimenting with a social media-style platform centered on generative image sharing and community engagement.
In August, OpenAI introduced GPT-5, describing it as “the most advanced and capable AI system” it has ever built, boasting superior performance across coding, math, writing, visual tasks, and healthcare analysis.
More recently, in September, OpenAI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Greece to expand AI integration into public education and small business development. The initiative, branded “OpenAI for Greece,” includes a pilot to introduce ChatGPT Edu, a customized version of its chatbot for schools and universities, in the next academic year.
OpenAI’s meteoric rise underscores investors’ growing appetite for artificial intelligence (AI) companies driving the next wave of digital transformation. The valuation milestone positions the ChatGPT maker ahead of rivals such as Anthropic, Cohere, and Mistral AI, while solidifying its partnership with major backer Microsoft, which has invested more than $13 billion across multiple rounds.
The valuation caps a milestone year for OpenAI, marked by product launches, partnerships, and global expansion.
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