News

OpenAI Secures Historic $40 Billion Investment

• By John K. Waters
• 04/02/2025

OpenAI announced Monday that it has closed a record-breaking $40 billion funding round led by Japan’s SoftBank Group, setting a new benchmark for private capital in the tech sector. The massive investment pushes the artificial intelligence firm’s valuation to $300 billion and comes as the company signals plans for internal restructuring to support its rapid growth.

The funding, which nearly doubles OpenAI's valuation from just six months ago, places it among the world's most valuable private companies, rivaling Elon Musk's SpaceX and ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok.

SoftBank will invest $7.5 billion along with $2.5 billion "from an investor syndicate," according to Bloomberg). The remaining $30 billion is set to arrive by year's end, CNBC reported.

"We're excited to be working in partnership with SoftBank Group," the company stated in a blog post. "Few companies understand how to scale transformative technology like they do. Their support will help us continue building AI systems that drive scientific discovery, enable personalized education, enhance human creativity, and pave the way toward AGI that benefits all of humanity."

SoftBank's Terms Tied to Restructuring
The deal arrives as OpenAI seeks to shift from its current hybrid nonprofit-for-profit model to a fully for-profit public benefit corporation (P.B.C.), a move necessary to unlock the full investment. According to SoftBank's filing, $20 billion of its funding is contingent upon OpenAI completing this restructuring by the end of 2025.

If the restructuring stalls, SoftBank's commitment could be reduced by as much as 50%, reflecting investor concerns over OpenAI's complex governance model, which currently gives its original nonprofit entity controlling authority.

That governance structure has drawn fire from Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI who left the organization in 2018. He has sued Altman and the board, claiming they breached the company's founding agreement by prioritizing profit over public good. Musk also led an unsolicited $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI's nonprofit arm earlier this year, an offer the board rejected.

Demand Surge and User Growth
OpenAI said the fresh capital will be used to scale compute infrastructure, advance general AI research, and support consumer product growth. According to sources, around $18 billion of the funds are earmarked for OpenAI's "Stargate" initiative, a massive data center joint venture with Oracle and SoftBank focused on training next-generation AI models.

The company also announced that ChatGPT has reached 500 million weekly active users, up from 400 million in February, and now serves 20 million paid subscribers. Altman said user demand has continued to climb, calling the chatbot's launch "one of the craziest viral moments I'd ever seen."

OpenAI recently made its GPT-4o-powered image generator available to all users, though with usage limits on free tiers. The tool gained viral traction after users began converting photos into Studio Ghibli-style animations, raising fresh copyright concerns. OpenAI said such images are watermarked with metadata and subject to content policy enforcement.

Industry Impact and Competitive Landscape
The $40 billion round dwarfs previous private tech raises, eclipsing Ant Group's $14 billion in 2018 and OpenAI's own $10 billion round last year. Analysts say the deal cements OpenAI's leadership in the rapidly evolving AI arms race.

Rival firms, including Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Amazon-backed xAI, are racing to build "AI agents," the systems capable of autonomously performing digital tasks for users. OpenAI's foray into this domain, alongside its consumer and enterprise offerings, is seen as a key factor behind investor enthusiasm.

OpenAI reportedly expects revenue to more than triple in 2025, reaching $12.7 billion.