Ammon News - OpenAI is in early talks about a potential sale of stock for current and former employees at a valuation of about $500 billion, people briefed on the investment discussions said, marking an enormous gain in value for the artificial intelligence leader.

The company is targeting a secondary stock sale in the billions of dollars, the people said, asking to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Existing investors including Thrive Capital have approached OpenAI about buying some of the employee shares, the people said.

If the deal goes ahead, it would elevate OpenAI’s on-paper price tag by roughly two-thirds. Its previous valuation stood at $300 billion in a $40 billion financing round led by SoftBank Group Corp. (SFTBF)— making it one of the largest privately held companies in the world. Representatives for OpenAI and Thrive declined to comment.

The latest move follows news last week the startup had secured $8.3 billion from a syndicate of investors for a second tranche of that $40 billion financing, which was oversubscribed by about five times, according to one of the people briefed on the discussions. OpenAI managed to snag that funding ahead of schedule, the person said. Bloomberg