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OpenAI hits $500 billion valuation

Oct 2, 2025, 6:32am EDT
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 OpenAI logo
Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/Reuters

OpenAI employees sold shares at a $500 billion valuation, pushing the company past SpaceX to be the world’s most valuable private company.

The new figure represents a major jump from March’s valuation of $300 billion. OpenAI is not the only tech company seeing its valuation leap: Elon Musk’s firms, including SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI, took his net worth briefly above $500 billion, making him — for a time — the world’s first half-trillionaire.

AI’s rapid growth has raised fears of a bubble, one so huge that if it bursts “the economy will pop with it,” Reuters’ finance editor wrote. But tech firms are betting the line will go further up, with Samsung agreeing to supply chips for OpenAI’s $500-billion data center investment.

A chart showing the forecast global revenue from generative AI.
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