The AI startup is chasing a $500 billion valuation, with backers betting it can become the next Apple or Google. There are reasons for skepticism.

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is in talks to sell $6 billion in shares owned by its current and former employees to investors, in a deal that would value the artificial intelligence company at roughly $500 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.

Citron Research, the firm led by short-seller Andrew Left, unpacked its bear case for Palantir, using OpenAI to show why it may be highly overvalued.

Current and former OpenAI employees plan to sell approximately $6 billion worth of shares to an investor group that includes Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group Corp. and Dragoneer Investment Group, in a deal that values the ChatGPT maker at $500 billion.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes that, given all the AI hype from investors and capital expenditures, we're currently in an AI bubble. Altman made the statement during a conversation with The Verge and a handful of other reporters on Thursday.

"It was clear that if we didn't do it, the world was gonna be mostly built on Chinese open source models," Altman said.

Many fears of an AI bubble had hit a fever pitch at the start of this year when Chinese start-up DeepSeek released a competitive reasoning model.

OpenAI reversed the change on Tuesday, allowing the previous model to be accessible by paid users, but the episode illustrates what researchers are calling “AI Psychosis,” where overly-pleasing chatbots exacerbate delusions and create a false sense of romantic love.

The return of GPT-4o comes after what Altman described as OpenAI underestimating "how much some of the things that people like in GPT-4o matter to them." In an attempt to simplify its offerings, OpenAI had initially removed all previous AI models from ChatGPT when GPT-5 launched on August 7,

OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman wants to spend trillions of dollars over time on the infrastructure required to develop and run artificial intelligence services. He just needs to figure out a way to raise that kind of money.

OpenAI made some bold claims when it launched GPT-5, but is ChatGPT truly so much better now? I put it to the test.The Latest Tech News, Delivered to Your Inbox