This valuation means that the AI company has tripled its valuation in less than 10 months. According to data from CB Insights, OpenAI is now one of the world’s most valuable tech startups, just behind ByteDance and SpaceX.

It has been reported that the company is due to sell existing shares in a tender offer led by the venture firm Thrive Capital. The deal will let employees cash out their shares in the company, rather than a traditional funding round that would raise money for business operations.

This new deal represents another example of Silicon Valley's financial investment operations channelling funds into a select group of enterprises focusing on generative AI. This technology is capable of autonomously producing text, sounds, and images. The surge in funding began in early 2023, following OpenAI's release of its chatbot ChatGPT, which significantly engaged the public's interest.

In early last year, OpenAI secured a significant deal with top venture capital firms including Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and K2 Global, who agreed to acquire shares in OpenAI through a tender offer. It was reported that this move valued the company at around $29 billion. Back in January 2023, Microsoft invested $10 billion in the startup, following two other investments in the company in 2021 and 2019.

OpenAI has been in the news frequently in the past few months.

Last week, OpenAI launched Sora, a new tool which has the capability to generate videos from text prompts. The tool is capable of generating lifelike footage up to a minute long, closely following the user's instructions on both the content and style. Impressively, Sora doesn't just create videos from textual descriptions from the ground up but can also turn still images into videos or add new elements to enhance existing footage.

It has also been reported that OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has been engaged in discussions to either acquire a chip manufacturer or enhance the company's access to the costly artificial intelligence chips essential for its tools.

Towards the end of 2023, Altman departed from his CEO and board member duties at OpenAI. During this time, the company released a statement, saying: “OpenAI was deliberately structured to advance our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity. The board remains fully committed to serving this mission. We are grateful for Sam’s many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward.”

Though mere days after his dismissal, OpenAI announced the return of Altman as CEO, following significant upheaval within the company and an open letter from its staff demanding his reinstatement.