OpenAI turns 600 employees into millionaires: Inside the mega deal

The artificial intelligence sector isn’t just redrawing the boundaries of global technology; it’s also rewriting the rules of private wealth creation in finance. The clearest example comes from San Francisco, where OpenAI has allowed 600 current and former employees to sell part of their stakes in a deal totaling $6.6 billion, effectively turning them into millionaires.

According to the report, this is an unprecedented operation: the company led by Sam Altman authorized employees to sell shares worth up to $30 million per person, showing how quickly equity can be converted into real cash—much earlier than is typically expected.

How did OpenAI turn its employees into millionaires? And why could this deal create a new wave of mega-rich insiders in Silicon Valley?

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OpenAI: how the tender offer that enriched employees works

The tool OpenAI used to enrich its employees is the so‑called “tender offer,” essentially a partial public tender offer conducted in a private-market context. To grasp the scale of this move, though, it helps to take a step back.

Typically, employees at hyper‑growth startups hold stock options or RSUs (Restricted Stock Units), financial instruments that only turn into actual cash once the company goes public (IPO) or is acquired by a tech giant. OpenAI broke with that convention by structuring an internal secondary sale that allowed staff to cash out some of their equity on the secondary market, tapping private funds provided by outside institutional investors.

The numbers behind the deal are like nothing seen before. The maximum individual cashout cap per employee was raised from $10 million to a hefty $30 million. Based on available data, about 75 people hit that ceiling, taking home the full amount allowed.

Even those who didn’t reach the cap still walked away with multimillion‑dollar payouts, with average proceeds per participant topping $11 million. This massive injection of liquidity underscores just how hungry investors are for a slice of the company, so eager, in fact, that they’re willing to buy shares directly from staff just to get in before a potential Wall Street listing.

Record valuation and the AI talent wars

Sam Altman’s company pulled off a record cashout ($6.6 billion) on the back of rock‑solid fundamentals and a staggering private valuation. OpenAI has recently closed huge funding rounds backed by long‑time partners and new investors alike (including Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and SoftBank), pushing its post‑money valuation to an eye‑popping $852 billion.

To put that in perspective, the California startup now sits on a valuation higher than long‑established giants in the global auto, banking, or energy industries, despite having a relatively lean internal structure.

Rivals (Google, Meta, Anthropic and others) are fighting a daily battle, dangling million‑dollar pay packages to lure top minds away from OpenAI. Building generative AI models capable of underpinning an entire business requires brilliant talent and world‑class researchers specializing in machine learning.

Letting its own employees become millionaires in short order – without waiting for the red tape and long timelines of a formal IPO – cements loyalty inside the team and positions OpenAI as the most attractive and best‑paying employer in the global tech ecosystem.

Artificial intelligence proves itself a lucrative bet

OpenAI’s financial maneuver marks a turning point for the entire innovation economy because it shows that the value generated by artificial intelligence is already being converted into tangible assets and hard cash, shoring up institutional investors’ confidence in the company’s long‑term vision.

While questions remain around the sustainability of computing costs and the fierce competitive pressure from rivals, OpenAI has shown it can manage the leap from research lab to global financial powerhouse.

This article was originally published on Money.it and is here re-published under license. It can be seen in its original here.