OpenAI completed a private sale of 6.6 billion magnesium shares, and its valuation soared to 500 billion magnesium! Hedging against Musk’s xAI

OpenAI completed employee stock sales, releasing 6.6 billion in liquidity, and its valuation exceeded US$500 billion. Go head-to-head with Musk’s xAI in the AI startup.
(Preliminary summary: Sora 2 is coming! OpenAI wants to regain the throne of life video models, and the iOS App of the same name is launched to target Tiktok)
(Background supplement: Musk has become the first rich man worth over 500 billion U.S. dollars! Tesla, SpaceX and xAI three-engine resonance)

It is reported that the well-known ChatGPT operator OpenAI has completed 66 The company's $500 million employee private equity sale has pushed the company's valuation to $500 billion, surpassing Musk's SpaceX to become the world's most expensive startup in terms of new valuation, although stablecoin issuer Tether is also at the same valuation level.

Capital’s bets on general artificial intelligence (AGI) reached a new high on this day, and OpenAI also launched a head-on confrontation with Elon Musk’s xAI.

OpenAI’s valuation has reached its peak

According to RTE News, sources reported that Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer, MGX and T. Rowe Price were buying OpenAI stocks in the latest transactions, targeting the company’s revenue of US$4.3 billion in the first half of the year and ChatGPT’s market share. Microsoft's previous investment of US$13 billion in cloud and computing power has also become a key driver of the upward valuation revision.

Looking back on the past year, OpenAI has grown from US$300 billion to US$500 billion, far faster than most listed technology leaders. The "capped profit" structure allows the non-profit parent company to retain mission control while giving investors a clear upper limit on returns, becoming a special mechanism to attract long-term funds.

This secondary sale brought long-lost cash to old employees and released approximately US$6.6 billion in liquidity. OpenAI may plan to invest most of the new funds into model training and inference infrastructure to maintain technological leadership while continuing to poach employees with attractive salaries.

xAI’s pursuit of vertical integration

Musk founded xAI after leaving OpenAI. Its valuation reached US$200 billion in September, ranking second despite the gap. xAI recently completed a $10 billion fundraising and received an additional $2 billion from SpaceX. The core product Grok deeply integrates X, Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink to form a closed loop where data and customers are accumulated simultaneously.

Some markets predict that Grok’s annual revenue will rise significantly from US$500 million in 2025 to US$19 billion in 2029. xAI also plans to rely on the “Colossus” supercomputer to shorten model training time. Unlike OpenAI, which relies heavily on external corporate cooperation, xAI regards AI as the shared engine of Musk's ecosystem.