OpenAI's price tag jumps from $852B to over $1.2T in talks

In March OpenAI completed a financing that valued it at $852 billion. The number now being discussed with investors, according to the Wall Street Journal, is more than $1.2 trillion, and the round it belongs to would land before the IPO.

At a glance

• Early talks with investors put OpenAI above $1.2 trillion, up from the $852 billion it carried in March after closing a $122 billion financing backed by Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank.
• The round, if it closes, would come before an initial public offering now expected next year; CFO Sarah Friar told staff OpenAI will be a public company in 2027, CNBC reported.
• The Journal's account rests on one person familiar with the matter and names neither the model behind the timing, nor the size of the raise, nor a single investor at the table.

If you have not followed the money side of this company: OpenAI was set up in December 2015 as a nonprofit lab with $1 billion in pledges, and according to the Pinggy blog the cash that actually arrived was closer to $130 million. Elon Musk put in about $38 million before leaving the board in February 2018, per the same blog. In July 2019 Microsoft invested $1 billion and OpenAI moved its infrastructure onto Azure as part of the deal.

The last completed number was $852 billion in March

That is the marker the Journal measures against: $852 billion, reached in March after OpenAI completed a $122 billion financing from investors including Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank. The steps below it are on the record. In October 2024 OpenAI closed a $6.6 billion round at $157 billion post-money, led by Thrive Capital with Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, Fidelity and MGX taking part.

The next day it lined up a $4 billion revolving credit facility from a bank syndicate including JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. According to Tracxn's funding data, Microsoft's $10 billion arrived in January 2023 at a $29 billion post-money valuation, and a $40 billion round led by SoftBank and Dragoneer closed on 31 March 2025 at $300 billion. Tracxn counts $180 billion raised across 14 rounds in total.

A pre-IPO round and an employee cash-out are different instruments

From outside they look alike, because both produce a headline valuation. In a primary round the company issues new shares and keeps the money. In a secondary sale, existing holders — founders, staff, early backers — sell shares they already own to someone else; the share count stays put and the company receives nothing.

Think of a shop selling new gift cards versus one customer selling a card to another: only the first puts money in the till. According to Clay, OpenAI's October 2025 transaction was the second kind, a $6.6 billion secondary for employee liquidity, separate from the primary Series F fundraising.

Underneath all of it sits the 2019 capped-profit structure, which, per the Pinggy blog, capped investor returns at 100x of invested capital, revised downward later, with anything above the cap reverting to the nonprofit that controls the company.

The IPO now has a year attached to it: 2027

The Journal says the round, if completed, would precede the IPO, now expected next year. CNBC reported that Friar told staff OpenAI "will be a public company in 2027". The Journal also ties the timing of the talks to the release of OpenAI's latest cutting-edge model, which it does not name.

The backdrop moved this year as well. According to the Pinggy blog, Anthropic closed a $65 billion Series H at a $965 billion post-money valuation on 28 May 2026, briefly putting it above OpenAI's $852 billion; the same tally puts the two companies' combined fundraising at roughly $300 billion in a few years.

Everything here rests on one person familiar with the matter, and early talks are not terms: no size for the raise, no investors named, no model identified as the trigger. In our view the anchor is the odd part, since a step from $852 billion to more than $1.2 trillion is being pinned to a release the report will not name.

Which model, and whose money

Two things would turn this from talk into a round: a stated size and named investors. Neither is on the record, and the Journal calls the discussions early. The open question is whether more than $1.2 trillion is the number that ends up in signed terms, or only the one being floated in the room. No date has been given for when the round might close, and no bank or fund has been placed at the table.