# OpenAI lets employees cash out another $7 billion in stock > Source: > Published: 2026-08-11 18:01:22+00:00 # OpenAI lets employees cash out another $7 billion in stock **OpenAI just minted a few more multimillionaires.** The company wrapped up a stock buyback worth roughly $7 billion, [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-10/openai-buys-back-7-billion-of-employee-shares-in-tender-offer?srnd=homepage-americas) reports. Current and former employees were able to sell shares at the company's current $852 billion valuation. The tender offer had been in the works since OpenAI's $122 billion funding round in March. The goal is to take pressure off employees waiting for liquidity ahead of a potential and [delayed IPO](https://the-decoder.com/altman-wont-go-public-for-less-than-1-trillion-so-openais-ipo-may-slip-to-2027/). Back in October 2025, OpenAI ran a similar [stock sale worth $6.6 billion](https://the-decoder.com/openais-internal-share-sale-minted-roughly-75-multimillionaires-who-each-cashed-out-the-30-million-cap/), with about 75 employees cashing out up to $30 million each. The growing wealth in the AI industry has side effects, too. In San Francisco, AI [salaries are driving rents](https://the-decoder.com/san-franciscos-ai-boom-is-pricing-out-six-figure-tech-workers-who-cant-find-rent-under-5000/) so high that even top earners struggle to find apartments. Wealthy families are sending their kids to [AI-focused private schools](https://the-decoder.com/ai-private-schools-sell-wealthy-us-families-on-personalized-learning-over-traditional-education/) that charge up to $75,000 a year. ``` AI News Without the Hype – Curated by Humans Subscribe to THE DECODER for ad-free reading, a weekly AI newsletter, our exclusive "AI Radar" frontier report six times a year, full archive access, and access to our comment section. Subscribe now ``` [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-10/openai-buys-back-7-billion-of-employee-shares-in-tender-offer?srnd=homepage-americas)