Washington: OpenAI has finalized a $6.6 billion secondary share sale, allowing current and former employees to sell stock at a record valuation of $500 billion.

According to Anadolu Agency, CNBC reported on Thursday, citing a person familiar with the matter, that several prominent investors participated in the sale, including Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi's MGX, and T. Rowe Price.

Despite the company's initial $6 billion goal, only around two-thirds of the $10.3 billion in shares that OpenAI had approved for sale actually changed hands. The significant rise in valuation from $300 billion earlier this year to $500 billion is seen internally as a vote of confidence in the company's long-term prospects, indicating robust investor demand.

The offer, which was made in September, was available to qualified current and past employees, specifically those who had owned shares for more than two years. This is OpenAI's second significant tender offer in less than a year, following a $1.5 billion agreement with SoftBank in November.

With this recent transaction, OpenAI has surpassed SpaceX's $456 billion valuation, becoming the most valuable privately owned firm globally. The deal occurs as the competition for AI talent intensifies, with companies like Meta reportedly offering nine-figure remuneration packages to attract top researchers.

OpenAI joins an expanding group of well-known startups, such as SpaceX, Stripe, and Databricks, that use secondary sales to allow staff members to cash out while maintaining anonymity.