OpenAI has organized a private stock sale for its staff with SoftBank Group that allows current and former employees to sell their shares in SoftBank at $210 per share, a source said. said wealth on Tuesday.
The tender offer, or offer to buy shares in a company, allows OpenAI employees who were issued shares more than two years ago (OpenAI was valued at nearly 20 billion dollars) to take advantage of the great growth of the creator of ChatGPT. After a $6.6 billion fundraising round last October, the company's new valuation stands at 157 billion dollarsan almost eightfold increase.
According to wealthSoftBank plans to buy back up to $1.6 billion in shares from eligible shareholders. The tender offer price of $210 per share reflects OpenAI's $157 billion valuation.
Current OpenAI employees will be allowed to sell up to $10 million worth of stock. If the deal is signed with more people participating than the $1.6 billion cap allows, current OpenAI employees will have priority over former staff members.
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This means that former OpenAI employees may not be able to sell the full $10 million in shares under this tender offer. However, all current and former staff are guaranteed the ability to cash out at least $2 million in stock if they choose, according to OpenAI's rules.
Shareholders have until December 24 to decide if they want to sell their shares and how much.
SoftBank first invested about 500 million dollars at OpenAI in October.
OpenAI has over 2,000 employees, per Fortune. Data obtained by BI last week show this salaries for 86 employees in the company under specialty visas ranged from $145,000 to $530,000.
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