OpenAI Completes a $7B Employee Buyback at a Flat $852B Valuation — Using Its Own Cash Instead of Outside Buyers

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OpenAI finished a tender offer repurchasing roughly $7 billion of shares from current and former employees at an $852 billion valuation, matching rather than exceeding its March round. Two details make this more than a liquidity story: the company used its own balance sheet instead of tapping outside investors, and it ran the tender at all despite a confidential June IPO filing with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan — which reads as the IPO being further out than the filing implied. It follows a $6.6B tender at $500B last October and a $1.5B tender in 2024.