OpenAI is allowing employees to sell roughly $1.5 billion worth of shares in a new tender offer to SoftBank, CNBC has learned.

The new financing will allow the Japanese tech conglomerate to get an even larger slice of the AI startup, and it will allow current and former OpenAI employees to cash out their shares, two people familiar with the matter told CNBC.

Employees will have until Dec. 24 to decide if they want to participate in the new tender offer, which has not previously been reported, one of the people said. The deal was spurred by SoftBank billionaire founder and CEO Masayoshi Son, who was persistent in asking for a larger stake in the startup after putting $500 million into OpenAI’s last funding round, one of the people said.

The tender offer is not related to OpenAI’s potential plans to restructure the firm to a for-profit business, one of the people said.

OpenAI and SoftBank declined to comment.

The news underscores Son’s interest in the AI space and in backing the most valuable private players. SoftBank was an early investor in Arm, and Son said at a recent conference that he’s saving “tens of billions of dollars” to make the “next big move” in artificial intelligence. He had previously invested in Apple, Qualcomm and Alibaba.

SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 recently invested in AI startups Glean, Perplexity and Poolside. SoftBank has about 470 portfolio companies and $160 billion in assets across its two vision funds.

The OpenAI investment matches SoftBank’s eagerness to deploy cash, with a capital-intensive business model, a person close to Son told CNBC.

Even without SoftBank’s deep pockets, OpenAI has had no trouble raising billions in cash. Its valuation has climbed to $157 billion in the two years since launching ChatGPT. OpenAI has raised roughly $13 billion from Microsoft, and it closed its latest $6.6 billion round in October, led by Thrive Capital and including participation from chipmaker Nvidia, SoftBank and others.

The company also received a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion. OpenAI expects about $5 billion in losses on $3.7 billion in revenue this year, CNBC confirmed in September with a person familiar with the situation.

Databricks is another private company raising money to allow employees to cash out and avoid public markets pressure, CNBC reported this week.

OpenAI took a more restrictive approach to tender offers in the past, with rules allowing the company to determine who gets to participate in stock sales, CNBC reported in June. Current and former OpenAI employees previously told CNBC that there was growing concern about access to liquidity after reports that the company had the power to claw back vested equity.

But the company reversed its policies toward secondary share sales this summer, and it now allows current and former employees to participate equally in annual tender offers.

The company expects to allow more of these secondary sales, and it will need to tap private markets again in the future based on demand from investors and the capital-intensive nature of the business, according to a person familiar with this week’s tender offer.

OpenAI has faced increasing competition from startups like Anthropic and tech giants like Google. The generative AI market is predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade, and business spending on generative AI surged 500% this year, according to recent data from Menlo Ventures.

Last month OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positions the high-powered AI startup to better compete with search engines like Google, Microsoft’s Bing and Perplexity.

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Workday shares slipped as much as 11% in extended trading Tuesday after the human resources and finance software maker issued a quarterly forecast that came in below Wall Street projections.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, Workday called for an adjusted operating margin of 25% on $2.03 billion in subscription revenue. Analysts polled by StreetAccount were looking for a 25.5% margin and $2.04 billion in subscription revenue.

Here’s how the company performed during the fiscal third quarter compared with the consensus among analysts surveyed by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: $1.89 adjusted vs. $1.76 expected
• Revenue: $2.16 billion vs. $2.13 billion expected

Workday’s total revenue grew about 16% year over year in the quarter ended Oct. 31, according to a statement. Subscription revenue totaled $1.96 billion, up around 16%, consistent with the $1.96 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.

The company reported net income of $193 million or 72 cents per share, up $114 million or 43 cents per share in the same quarter a year ago. The adjusted operating margin for the quarter was 26.3%. StreetAccount had expected 25.4%.

In some parts of the world, Workday is still facing more deal scrutiny than usual, Workday’s finance chief, Zane Rowe, said on a conference call with analysts.

Now the company is looking to grow its business in the U.S. government, CEO Carl Eschenbach said. “We think there’s a huge opportunity there with probably more than 80% of HCM and ERP still on premises,” he said, referring to human capital management and enterprise resource planning.

Earlier this month, President-elect Donald Trump announced plans for an advisory panel called the “Department of Government Efficiency.”

“People are absolutely looking to drive more economies of scale and more efficiency,” Eschenbach said.

Workday said Rob Enslin, the former Google and SAP executive who stepped down as UiPath CEO in June, was joining as president and chief commercial officer. In October, Workday told employees that Doug Robinson, a co-president, will retire.

During the quarter, Workday acquired contract lifecycle management software startup Evisort. Workday also said artificial intelligence agents for spotting inefficiencies, filing expense reports and updating succession plans would become available in early access in 2025.

“We think they’re going to have a nice impact on bookings and revenue as we go into the new year,” Eschenbach said.

Rowe called for $8.8 billion in fiscal year 2026 subscription revenue, good for 14% growth.

As of Tuesday’s close, Workday shares were down 2% in 2024, while the S&P 500 index had gained 26%.

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