OpenAI's IPO Boom: Over 600 Employees Cash Out $6.6 Billion, Silicon Valley Sees Wave of New Wealth

Original Title: "OpenAI's Largest-Ever Internal Wealth Creation: 600 Employees Cash Out $6.6 Billion, 75 Max Out at $30 Million"
Original Author: Claude, Deep Tide TechFlow

Deep Tide Summary: The Wall Street Journal revealed the scale of wealth creation within OpenAI. In a stock sale event last October, the company raised the individual cash-out limit from $10 million to $30 million, with over 600 current and former employees participating, cashing out a total of $6.6 billion, with around 75 individuals maxing out the limit.

CEO Brockman confirmed in court this week that his stake is valued at around $30 billion. Silicon Valley has never seen a pre-IPO company create such a dense group of multi-millionaires.

In the past, the common path for ordinary Silicon Valley employees to strike it rich was typically through an IPO. OpenAI is rewriting this rule.

According to The Wall Street Journal, in a stock sale event completed last October, OpenAI allowed employees to sell up to $30 million in shares each, with over 600 current and former employees participating, cashing out a total of approximately $6.6 billion. Sources revealed that around 75 individuals maxed out the $30 million limit. This is the largest single employee stock sale event in the tech industry to date.

Cash-Out Limit Tripled, External Investor Demand Driving Higher Limits

OpenAI originally set a $10 million limit for employee cash-outs. However, due to external investor demand far exceeding expectations, the company directly tripled the limit to $30 million last fall.

The transaction was completed at a valuation of $500 billion, with investors including Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi's MGX, and T. Rowe Price among others. According to CNBC's earlier reports, OpenAI initially planned for a sale of around $60 billion, later expanded to $103 billion, but ultimately closed at approximately $6.6 billion. Internally, the lower participation rate was interpreted as employees voting with confidence in the long-term outlook.

According to OpenAI's regulations, employees can sell shares after being with the company for two years. This means that many employees who joined after the release of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 had their first opportunity to cash out in this round of transactions. OpenAI's stock value has grown over 100 times in the past seven years.

Brockman Court Confirms Holding $300 Billion, Musk's Lawyer Presses On

The scale of wealth in the hands of executives is even more astounding. According to NBC, Greg Brockman, President and Co-founder of OpenAI, confirmed in court on May 4 that his current holdings of OpenAI stock are valued at around $300 billion.

This figure was revealed during the fourth day of the Musk v. OpenAI trial. Musk's lawyer, Steven Molo, repeatedly mentioned this figure during over two hours of questioning, asking Brockman why he had not fulfilled his initial commitment of a $100,000 donation while sitting on a $300 billion fortune. CNBC reported that Brockman admitted, "I did indeed not make the final donation, that is a fact."

According to Fortune, Musk's legal team also revealed multiple layers of financial ties between Brockman and CEO Sam Altman: Altman had provided Brockman with equity in his family office worth around $10 million back in 2017; Brockman also holds stakes in AI chip startup Cerebras and nuclear fusion company Helion Energy, with OpenAI having discussed acquiring Cerebras and Altman having invested hundreds of millions in Helion. Musk's side argues that these cross-holdings have compromised Brockman's independence as a trustee.

Employees Own 26% of Stock, Per Capita Paper Wealth Exceeds Most VC Fund Total Returns

Following a company restructuring completed in October last year, OpenAI employees collectively own approximately 26% of the company's stock.

According to StartupHub's analysis, around 165 current and former employees collectively hold stock worth around $164.9 billion, with an average per capita paper wealth of around $1 billion, surpassing the total returns of most venture capital funds.

As analyzed by The Wall Street Journal and data firm Equilar, OpenAI's per capita stock compensation in 2025 is around $1.5 million, more than 7 times that of Google's in the year before its 2004 IPO, and 34 times higher than the average of 18 large tech companies' pre-IPO year levels over the past 25 years.

The company's stock-based compensation expense accounts for nearly half of the expected revenue, far exceeding peers such as Palantir, Meta, and Salesforce.

$85.2 Billion Valuation, Trillion-Dollar IPO on the Horizon, Wealth Creation Machine Far From Stopping

In March 31st of this year, OpenAI achieved a valuation of $852 billion and completed a $122 billion financing, setting a new record for the largest single round of private funding in Silicon Valley's history. Amazon led the investment with $50 billion, while NVIDIA and SoftBank each invested $30 billion. The company currently has a monthly revenue of $2 billion, with over 900 million active users on ChatGPT and over 50 million paid subscribers.

According to multiple media reports, OpenAI is preparing to launch an IPO in the fourth quarter of 2026, with a target valuation that could reach $1 trillion. If successful, this would be one of the largest tech company IPOs in history. CFO Sarah Friar previously stated at Davos that the company plans to allocate a portion of the IPO shares to retail investors.

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