OpenAI’s Largest Internal Wealth Creation Event: 600 Employees Cash Out $6.6 Billion in Total; 75 Individuals Receive the Maximum $30 Million
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OpenAI’s Largest Internal Wealth Creation Event: 600 Employees Cash Out $6.6 Billion in Total; 75 Individuals Receive the Maximum $30 Million
Never in Silicon Valley’s history has a private company created such a dense concentration of millionaires before its IPO.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Claude, TechFlow
TechFlow Introduction: The Wall Street Journal has exposed the unprecedented wealth creation unfolding inside OpenAI. In an internal employee stock sale completed last October, the company raised the individual cash-out cap from $10 million to $30 million. Over 600 current and former employees participated, collectively realizing $6.6 billion in proceeds—approximately 75 individuals hit the $30 million cap outright. President Greg Brockman confirmed in court this week that his OpenAI stake is worth roughly $30 billion. Never before in Silicon Valley history has a private company generated such a dense cohort of millionaires prior to its IPO.
Image source: Wall Street Journal
In the past, Silicon Valley employees hoping for sudden wealth had only one path: wait for their company to go public. OpenAI is rewriting that rule.
According to the Wall Street Journal, in an internal stock transaction completed last October, OpenAI permitted employees to sell up to $30 million worth of shares each. More than 600 current and former employees participated, collectively realizing approximately $6.6 billion. Sources familiar with the matter say around 75 individuals took the full $30 million cap—making this the largest single employee stock sale event in tech industry history.
Cash-Out Cap Tripled Amid Surging External Investor Demand
OpenAI’s original per-transaction cash-out cap for employees was $10 million. But due to external investor demand far exceeding expectations, the company tripled the cap to $30 million last fall.
The transaction closed at a $500 billion valuation, with investors including Thrive Capital, SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and T. Rowe Price. As previously reported by CNBC, OpenAI initially planned a $6 billion sale, later expanding it to $10.3 billion—but the final realized amount came to roughly $6.6 billion. Internally, the company interpreted the relatively low participation rate as a vote of confidence in its long-term prospects.
Under OpenAI’s rules, employees become eligible to sell shares after two years of service. This means many who joined after ChatGPT’s launch at the end of 2022 gained their first opportunity to exercise and cash out options in this round. OpenAI’s share value has grown over 100-fold in the past seven years.
Brockman Confirms $30 Billion Stake in Court; Musk’s Lawyer Presses Relentlessly
The scale of wealth held by executives is even more staggering. According to NBC News, Greg Brockman—OpenAI’s president and co-founder—confirmed during courtroom testimony on May 4 that his current OpenAI equity stake is valued at approximately $30 billion.
This figure emerged on Day Four of the trial in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI. Musk’s attorney, Steven Molo, repeatedly cited the $30 billion figure over more than two hours of questioning, pressing Brockman on why he had not fulfilled his earlier pledge to donate $100,000 while sitting on a $30 billion fortune. As reported by CNBC, Brockman admitted, “I did not ultimately make the donation—that is true.”
According to Fortune, Musk’s legal team also revealed multiple layers of financial entanglement between Brockman and CEO Sam Altman: Altman granted Brockman approximately $10 million in interests from his family office as early as 2017; Brockman also holds stakes in AI chip startup Cerebras and fusion energy company Helion Energy—both companies OpenAI has reportedly discussed acquiring, while Altman has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into Helion. Musk’s side contends these cross-holdings compromise Brockman’s independence as a fiduciary.
Employees Hold 26% Equity; Average Paper Wealth Exceeds Total Returns of Most VC Funds
Following the company’s restructuring last October, OpenAI employees collectively hold approximately 26% of the company’s equity.
Per StartupHub’s analysis, roughly 165 current and former employees collectively hold equity valued at about $164.9 billion—averaging approximately $1 billion per person in paper wealth, surpassing the total lifetime returns of most venture capital funds.
According to analyses by the Wall Street Journal and data firm Equilar, OpenAI’s average stock-based compensation per employee in 2025 is about $1.5 million—more than seven times Google’s pre-IPO level in 2004, and 34 times the average across 18 major tech companies in the year before their IPOs over the past 25 years.
The company’s equity compensation expense accounts for nearly half its projected revenue—far exceeding peers such as Palantir, Meta, and Salesforce.
$85.2 Billion Valuation, Trillion-Dollar IPO Looming—the Wealth Machine Is Far From Done
On March 31 this year, OpenAI closed a $122 billion funding round at an $852 billion valuation—the largest single private fundraising round in Silicon Valley history. Amazon led with $50 billion, while NVIDIA and SoftBank each contributed $30 billion. The company currently generates $2 billion in monthly revenue, ChatGPT boasts over 900 million weekly active users, and paid subscribers exceed 50 million.
Multiple media outlets report OpenAI is preparing to launch its IPO in Q4 2026, targeting a valuation potentially reaching $1 trillion. If realized, it would rank among the largest tech IPOs in history. CFO Sarah Friar previously stated at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the company plans to allocate a portion of its IPO shares to retail investors.
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