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Softbank adds another $1.5 billion to OpenAI investment

OpenAI is allowing its current employees to sell shares in a tender offer to Softbank.
TJ Denzer
TJ Denzer
Image via Getty Images
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The Softbank company is making another major investment in generative AI company OpenAI which will likely result in the transference of around $1.5 billion in shares. The shares come through a tender offer that is open to current and previous employees who had been granted restricted stock. Said investment comes on top of a recent $6.6 billion round of funding that saw the company break $157 billion in valuation.

OpenAI opened the doors for its employees to sell their restricted stocks to Softbank this week, as reported by CNBC. The move on Softbank’s part comes as part of the result of a major push by CEO, founder, and billionaire Masayoshi Son, who campaigned heavily for Softbank to have a bigger stake in the OpenAI company. Employees will be able to sell their stocks at a total unit price of $210 per share. Sellers would be able to cash out their shares and avoid any significant transfer to the public market since OpenAI is not publicly traded at this time.

Tender offers have become increasingly popular in tech company investment, especially with groups like OpenAI that have no current plans for an initial public offering. Nonetheless, at the $157 billion valuation, OpenAI continues to be a group with massive buzz in the generative AI development space. It hasn’t been all roses, either, however. The company has seen major leadership leave, including co-founder John Schulman and CTO Mira Murati. The ethics of generative AI use and training are also a concern, with the company recently admitting it can’t train its systems without sufficient copyrighted material.

Nonetheless, Softbank clearly still sees major value in the company and they’re hardly the only ones. As we continue to cover OpenAI, ChatGPT, and other generative AI news, stay tuned here at Shacknews.

Senior News Editor
Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

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