Preventing Employee Exodus? OpenAI Expands Employee Stock Sale from 8 Trillion to 14 Trillion Won

Secondary Share Sale Expanded by Over $4 Billion
OpenAI Valuation Reaches $500 Billion
Eases IPO Pressure and Provides Liquidity Opportunities for Employees

According to a report by the U.S. business media outlet CNBC on September 3 (local time), OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has decided to expand the size of stock sales by current and former employees by more than $4 billion.

Yonhap News Agency

According to sources, OpenAI has increased the amount of shares that current and former employees can sell to investors from the original target of $6 billion to $10.3 billion (approximately 14 trillion won). This is more than 70% higher than the previous plan.

OpenAI's market value is estimated at $500 billion. Considering that the company was valued at $300 billion during its fundraising round in March this year, its valuation has increased by more than 60% in just half a year.

On this day, OpenAI notified employees of the related offer. Employees who have held shares for more than two years must decide whether to participate by the end of this month. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of October. Investors participating in the deal include Japan's SoftBank, venture capital firm Thrive Capital, and Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund MGX, among others.

OpenAI has regularly provided employees with opportunities to sell their shares. This is intended to reduce pressure for an initial public offering (IPO) and allow employees to realize some profits through share sales. By offering employees a chance to cash out before an IPO, the company aims to prevent turnover, while also providing investors with a partial exit route. As a result, the company can focus on its long-term strategy without rushing toward an IPO.

Previously, in November last year, OpenAI supported an employee share sale worth about $1.5 billion through a public tender offer with SoftBank. Companies such as SpaceX, Stripe, and Databricks have also utilized this secondary sale approach.

Although the specific reasons for expanding the size of this transaction have not been disclosed, industry observers believe it is a strategy to retain talent. The timing is particularly noteworthy, as the sale follows a recent exodus of AI talent to Meta. Meta has been aggressively recruiting talent from competitors by offering compensation packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars per person. In this process, around 20 OpenAI researchers are reported to have moved to Meta.

The U.S. investment media outlet AInvest reported that OpenAI's secondary share sale is an excellent strategy in terms of capital reallocation, stating, "By providing immediate liquidity to employees who have been with the company for more than two years, OpenAI has addressed its weaknesses in the ongoing AI talent war."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.