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OpenAI revenue, valuation & funding

OpenAI was valued at $852B when its March 2026 round closed, and its annualized revenue topped a reported $40B in August 2026. It's private and filed confidentially for an IPO in June 2026. Its CFO has told staff it is targeting a listing by 2027.

Checked Nov 6, 2026 · 12 sources linked · openai.com

At a glance

  • Valuation: $852B post-money when its March 2026 round closed. In November 2026 it was reported to be in talks on a $20B round.
  • Revenue: annualized revenue topped $40B in August 2026, as reported. Sacra estimates $50B in September 2026. OpenAI publishes no audited results.
  • Status: private. No stock ticker. Filed confidentially for an IPO in June 2026.
  • Founded: December 2015, as a nonprofit. Founders include Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman and Trevor Blackwell.
  • CEO: Sam Altman.
  • Investors: SoftBank, Microsoft, Amazon, NVIDIA, a16z, MGX, TPG and D. E. Shaw Ventures, among others.
  • Products: ChatGPT, the Codex coding agent, the OpenAI API, GPT Image, Deep Research and the ChatGPT Atlas browser.
  • Headquarters: 1455 and 1515 Third Street, San Francisco.
  • On Real Alpha: 128 moments of its people talking, from 26 interviews.

Is OpenAI public? Can you buy its stock?

No. OpenAI is a private company, so its shares don't trade on any stock exchange and it has no ticker symbol. It hasn't disclosed an offering size, a price range or a ticker, according to Sacra.

OpenAI said on June 8, 2026 that it had filed confidentially for an initial public offering. It submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the SEC, Capital Brief reported. Sacra says Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading the process, with a target valuation above $1 trillion.

CFO Sarah Friar told employees on August 20, 2026 that OpenAI is targeting a listing by 2027, per Sacra. She described the IPO as "a milestone, another fundraise." In September, Sam Altman ruled out a 2026 listing, citing AI safety concerns. OpenAI has hired Cynthia Gaylor, DocuSign's former CFO, as its first head of investor relations.

Until a listing, its shares are held by the OpenAI Foundation, Microsoft, employees and other investors. A roughly $7B secondary sale at the $852B valuation let current and former employees sell stock, Sacra reports. This page reports facts and gives no investment advice.

Valuation, round by round

Its valuation went from $300B in March 2025 to $852B in March 2026, close to three times in a year.

DateValued atRaisedLed bySource
Nov 2026—In talksUAE investors including MGXForbes
Mar 2026$852B$122BSoftBank (co-led with a16z, D. E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG, and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates)OpenAI
Oct 2025$500B——Proactive Investors via Yahoo Finance
Mar 2025$300B$40BSoftBankTechCrunch

The $20B round reported in November 2026 is in talks and hasn't closed, and no valuation for it has been confirmed. In February 2026 OpenAI announced $110B at a $730B pre-money valuation, ahead of the March close.

Revenue

OpenAI doesn't publish audited results. Sacra estimates its yearly run rate rose from $20B at the end of 2025 to $50B in September 2026, more than doubling.

DateFigureBasisSource
Sep 2026$50BEstimateSacra
Aug 2026$40BReportedYahoo Finance (Quartz)
Jul 2026$40BEstimateSacra

A run rate is a month's revenue times twelve. It isn't a year's audited revenue, and Sacra's figures are estimates. Sacra puts quarterly revenue at $5.7B in Q1 2026 and $6.7B in Q2.

How OpenAI makes money

OpenAI sells ChatGPT subscriptions, business plans and API access, and it has started selling ads. It said it was generating $2B in revenue per month in March 2026 (OpenAI).

Sacra estimates the ads business reached $1B in annualized revenue by August 2026.

  • Subscriptions. ChatGPT had over 50 million subscribers as of March 31, 2026. OpenAI
  • Enterprise. Business customers made up more than 40% of revenue in March 2026. OpenAI said they were on track to match consumer revenue by the end of 2026. OpenAI
  • Developers. The API charges per use. It processed more than 15 billion tokens per minute in March 2026. OpenAI
  • Ads. An ads pilot passed $100 million in ARR in under six weeks, OpenAI said in March 2026. OpenAI
  • Microsoft's share. Under the renegotiated partnership, OpenAI's revenue-share payments to Microsoft are capped and limited to payments through 2030. Microsoft keeps resell rights through 2032. Sacra

From OpenAI's interviews

Products

ChatGPT is its main consumer product. Codex and the API serve developers, and both draw on the same models.

  • ChatGPT. Its chat assistant. In November 2026 a product lead said its voice features had 250 million weekly users and users created 1.5 billion images a week. Free Press Journal
  • Codex. Its coding agent. It served over 2 million weekly users in March 2026, up 5x in three months. OpenAI
  • OpenAI API (launched 2020). Lets developers build GPT models into their own apps, paid per use. Sacra
  • Dots. A personal agent platform. Tibo Sottiaux led its launch, along with ChatGPT Work.
  • Other products. Wikipedia also lists GPT-6, GPT Image, Deep Research, Agents, ChatGPT Atlas and ChatGPT Health. Wikipedia
  • Pierre Computer Company. OpenAI said in November 2026 it would buy the company, whose libraries power file browsing and code review in Codex. The deal still needs regulatory approval. Sacra
  • Weights.GG. OpenAI acquired the company behind the Replay voice-cloning and model-sharing platform. Sacra

From OpenAI's interviews

Users and usage

OpenAI said ChatGPT had more than 900 million weekly active users at the end of March 2026 (OpenAI). In early November 2026, consumer product lead Adam Fry put the figure at 1.2 billion, up about 200 million in two months (Free Press Journal).

Sacra estimates OpenAI's coding and work products reached 20 million weekly active users by mid-August 2026.

From OpenAI's interviews

Leadership

  • Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO. He has led OpenAI since 2019 and was earlier president of Y Combinator. Wikipedia
  • Greg Brockman, co-founder and president. Wikipedia also lists him as CEO of Applications. He was Stripe's first CTO. Wikipedia
  • Bret Taylor, chairman. Wikipedia
  • Sarah Friar, CFO. She oversaw Square's 2015 IPO and helped take Nextdoor public as its CEO. Wikipedia
  • Mark Chen, chief research officer. He led the teams behind DALL-E and Codex.
  • Jakub Pachocki, chief scientist.
  • Tibo Sottiaux, head of ChatGPT and Codex.
  • Fidji Simo, former CEO of Applications, now a part-time adviser. She was Instacart's CEO before joining.
  • Noam Shazeer, a co-author of the Transformer, who joined OpenAI in 2026.
  • Cynthia Gaylor, its first head of investor relations. She was DocuSign's CFO. Sacra

From OpenAI's interviews

Who owns OpenAI?

OpenAI's business runs through OpenAI Group PBC, a public benefit corporation controlled by the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation. A 2025 restructuring converted its for-profit arm into the PBC, which Wikipedia says is 26% owned by the Foundation.

At the October 2025 recapitalization, Microsoft held about 27 percent, a stake worth about $135bn, Reuters reported. Wikipedia's infobox lists Microsoft at 23.3%, the OpenAI Foundation at 22.5% and employees and other investors at 54.2%.

  • SoftBank led the March 2025 round, $40B at a $300B valuation. TechCrunch
  • SoftBank, a16z, D. E. Shaw Ventures, MGX, TPG and T. Rowe Price-advised accounts co-led the March 2026 round of $122B at $852B. OpenAI
  • Amazon and NVIDIA anchored the March 2026 round with SoftBank. Microsoft also took part. OpenAI
  • Microsoft had invested $13.8bn by the October 2025 restructuring, according to Reuters. Al Jazeera (Reuters)
  • Individual investors put in over $3 billion through bank channels in March 2026, a first for OpenAI. OpenAI
  • MGX and other UAE investors were expected to be the largest participants in a $20B round in talks in November 2026. Forbes
  • The US government was in preliminary talks about a 5% stake as of July 2, 2026, Sacra reported. No agreement had been reached. Sacra

From OpenAI's interviews

Competitors

OpenAI is a frontier lab, so it competes with other labs on models and on the apps built on them. Its coding app and its research hiring face the sharpest rivalry, by its own people's account.

  • xAI, which Elon Musk launched in 2023 as a competitor, OpenAI argued in court. PBS NewsHour (AP)
  • Anthropic, whose coding app Sam Altman says Codex trailed when OpenAI started building it.
  • Google DeepMind, which Altman says had the resources to lead on scaling but didn't move decisively.
  • Meta, which approached half of Mark Chen's direct reports while recruiting researchers.
  • Microsoft, an owner and partner that also competes. Satya Nadella describes the tie as a mix of competition and investment.

What its people said about the competition

Timeline and latest news

From its founding to the latest reports, newest first.

  1. Nov 2, 2026Latest
    Cut the target for its new round to $20 billion, with UAE investors including MGX expected to be the largest. The round is in talks. Forbes
  2. Nov 2026Latest
    Adam Fry said ChatGPT had 1.2 billion weekly active users. Free Press Journal
  3. Nov 2026Latest
    Announced it would acquire Pierre Computer Company, pending regulatory approval. Sacra
  4. Sep 2026
    Sacra estimated its annualized revenue at $50B. Sacra
  5. Sep 2026
    Sam Altman ruled out a 2026 listing, citing AI safety concerns. Sacra
  6. Aug 20, 2026
    CFO Sarah Friar told staff it was targeting a listing by 2027. Sacra
  7. Aug 14, 2026
    Annualized revenue topped $40 billion, Yahoo Finance reported. Yahoo Finance (Quartz)
  8. Jul 2, 2026
    Was in preliminary talks about giving the US government a 5% stake, per Sacra. Sacra
  9. Jun 8, 2026
    Said it had filed confidentially for an IPO. TechCrunch
  10. May 18, 2026
    A jury found Elon Musk waited too long to sue, and his claims were dismissed. PBS NewsHour (AP)
  11. Mar 31, 2026
    Closed $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation. OpenAI
  12. Feb 2026
    Announced a $110 billion round at a $730 billion pre-money valuation. Proactive Investors via Yahoo Finance
  13. Oct 28, 2025
    Restructured into OpenAI Group PBC, with Microsoft holding about 27 percent. Al Jazeera (Reuters)
  14. Mar 31, 2025
    Raised $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation, led by SoftBank. TechCrunch
  15. Dec 27, 2023
    The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in federal court in New York. AI Vortex
  16. Dec 2015
    Founded as a nonprofit. Wikipedia

In their own words, and what followed

What people said about the business, with the minute they said it, and what was reported after.

Sam Altman on Relentless · Jul 25, 2026

“it seemed like a kind of crazy kamikaze mission to try to beat them with a coding app”

Reported after
By mid-August 2026, OpenAI's coding and work products had 20 million weekly active users, Sacra reports. Sacra

What others say about OpenAI

Moments where people outside the company talk about it.

Matthew Harris · How I Invest · Oct 26, 2026

“they're still going to sell a lot of OpenAI tokens into codex”

Ben Horowitz · All-In · Oct 17, 2026

“when they went from being a non-profit to a for-profit, they should have done a make right.”

Jeremie Harris · 80,000 Hours Podcast · Nov 5, 2026

“And there's been this evaporative cooling effect at OpenAI where year after year, there are rounds of selection.”

Ed Zitron · The Diary Of A CEO · Aug 27, 2026

“They are going to need to raise at least $100 billion a year just to survive.”

Satya Nadella · MD MEETS · Nov 29, 2025

Questions people ask

Is OpenAI a public company? Can I buy OpenAI stock?

No. OpenAI is private and has no ticker, so its shares aren't sold on any exchange. It filed confidentially for an IPO in June 2026.

When will OpenAI IPO?

CFO Sarah Friar told staff in August 2026 that it is targeting a listing by 2027, per Sacra. Sam Altman ruled out a 2026 listing in September. 0:46

Who owns OpenAI?

The nonprofit OpenAI Foundation controls OpenAI Group PBC. Microsoft held about 27 percent in October 2025, Reuters reported. Employees and investors such as SoftBank, Amazon and NVIDIA hold the rest.

Who is the CEO of OpenAI?

Sam Altman, a co-founder who has led it since 2019.

Who founded OpenAI?

Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman and Trevor Blackwell, among others, in December 2015.

How much is OpenAI worth?

$852B post-money when its March 2026 round closed, OpenAI said. A $20B round was in talks in November 2026, with no valuation confirmed.

How much revenue does OpenAI make?

Its annualized revenue topped $40B in August 2026, Yahoo Finance reported. Sacra estimates $50B in September 2026.

Is OpenAI profitable?

It doesn't publish audited results. Sacra estimates a 33% gross margin and cites a Financial Times report of $278B in projected negative free cash flow from 2026 through 2030. 1:44:43

How does OpenAI make money?

ChatGPT subscriptions, business plans, pay-per-use API access and ads. Enterprise made up more than 40% of revenue in March 2026. 29:09

How many people use ChatGPT?

1.2 billion weekly active users in early November 2026, Free Press Journal reported. It had over 50 million subscribers in March 2026. 38:34

Where is OpenAI headquartered?

1455 and 1515 Third Street, San Francisco.

Who are OpenAI's competitors?

Other frontier labs, including xAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind. Meta has also competed for its researchers. 21:46

Every moment from OpenAI's people

128 moments from 26 interviews on 19 shows, newest first. Each one plays from the minute it starts.

a16z Podcast · Oct 26, 2026 · 1 moment

Why OpenAI Is Racing to Make Computer Use Superhuman

No Priors · Oct 15, 2026 · 1 moment

The Changing Physics of Cybersecurity and Drug Development with OpenAI President Greg Brockman

Show 22 more interviews

Lenny's Podcast · Oct 4, 2026 · 3 moments

OpenAI’s Head of ChatGPT: We’re entering a new era of AI (again) | Tibo Sottiaux

Invest Like the Best · Jul 28, 2026 · 1 moment

Sam Altman on AGI, Compute, and Human Agency

Unsupervised Learning · Apr 9, 2026 · 3 moments

OpenAI’s Chief Scientist on Continual Learning Hype, RL Beyond Code, & Future Alignment Directions

Lex Fridman Podcast · Feb 12, 2026 · 2 moments

OpenClaw: The Viral AI Agent that Broke the Internet - Peter Steinberger | Lex Fridman Podcast #491

TBPN · Jan 27, 2026 · 2 moments

🦞 Moltbot / Clawdbot Creator Peter Steinberger, Palmer Luckey, and more

TBPN · Oct 31, 2025 · 2 moments

Marc Andreessen & Ilya Sutskever Host TBPN

Unsupervised Learning · Mar 17, 2025 · 3 moments

Noam Shazeer and Jack Rae: Scaling Test-time Compute, Reactions to Ilya & AGI

Dwarkesh Podcast · Feb 12, 2025 · 2 moments

Jeff Dean & Noam Shazeer — 25 years at Google: from PageRank to AGI

People on Real Alpha

Other companies in Frontier labs

Anthropic · Google DeepMind · Meta · SpaceXAI · Microsoft AI · Mistral AI · DeepSeek · Safe Superintelligence · Thinking Machines Lab · Cohere · Moonshot AI · Reflection AI

How this page is sourced

Each figure links to the filing, company statement or news report it came from, with its date. Run rates are what reporters were told, not audited results; estimates and unconfirmed reports are marked. Quotes are what each person said on the record, with the minute they said it. Spotted something that's off? .

Last checked Nov 6, 2026