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OpenAI has reversed its policies towards secondary share sales, and will now allow current and former employees to participate equally in annual tender offers, CNBC has learned.

The artificial intelligence startup has taken a restrictive approach in the past, with rules allowing the company to determine who gets to participate in stock sales, CNBC reported earlier this month. That led to concern among many shareholders about their ability to get liquidity for some of the millions of dollars worth of equity they own.

In a document shared last week through OpenAI’s equity administration software, the company altered its policy and said that “all sellers (current and former service providers) will have the same sales limit.” Service providers include employees and advisors, OpenAI said in the document, which was viewed by CNBC.

An OpenAI spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tender offers have become a particularly sensitive subject of late due to OpenAI’s skyrocketing valuation, which followed the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, and a relatively dormant IPO market for well over two years. With no public offering on the horizon and a price tag that makes the company prohibitively expensive for would-be acquirers, secondary stock sales are the only way in the near future for shareholders to pocket a portion of their paper wealth.

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. OpenAI, backed by roughly $13 billion from Microsoft, has been valued at over $80 billion.

Earlier documents indicated that, for former employees, secondary sales typically took place months after transactions for current staffers. And sales limits could differ significantly. In at least two tender offers, the limit for former employees was $2 million, compared to $10 million for current employees.

The change announced last week included the walking back of a provision that some worried could allow the company to forcibly repurchase shares at its “sole and absolute discretion” for the “fair market value.” Previous documents said that “the Company may, at any time and in its sole and absolute discretion, redeem (or cause the sale of) the Company interest of any Assignee for cash equal to the Fair Market Value of such interest.”

OpenAI said in the updated document that it “will not enforce any provision in employee equity documents that forces equity redemption at fair market value, and will revise our documents to reflect the same.”

Former employees who now work at competitors will also no longer be excluded from official tender offers, and will be included in the same category as other former employees, the internal document stated.

The one area where current employees will still be higher in line, OpenAI said, is if a future tender offer is oversubscribed, meaning that stakeholders want to sell more shares than investors have agreed to purchase. In that case, “we will prioritize giving liquidity to current service providers over former service providers,” resulting in a potential “cutback” for those no longer at the company, OpenAI said.

In reversing its tender offer policies, OpenAI has taken a further step to assuage employee fears. Following reports of potential clawbacks, OpenAI recently circulated a document, obtained by CNBC, titled, “Overview and Recap of OpenAI’s Tender Process,” detailing how the company has conducted equity purchases in the past and how it plans to handle them in the future.

Last month, OpenAI announced it would backtrack on a controversial decision to make former employees choose between signing a non-disparagement agreement that would never expire and keeping their vested equity in the company.

However, one notable issue regarding employee equity was not addressed in the latest change. In the past, OpenAI has opened up “donation rounds” to current employees, allowing them to donate a certain amount of their vested equity to charity, which brings with it tax incentives. Former employees could be excluded, as the donation rounds would likely be offered “to active employees only and are not guaranteed to happen,” according to messages viewed by CNBC earlier this month. The new document did not detail whether the policy is still in place.

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MicroStrategy copycats are getting out of control as Canadian vape company joins fray

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MicroStrategy copycats are getting out of control as Canadian vape company joins fray

The logos of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether outside a cryptocurrency exchange in Istanbul, Turkey, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. 

David Lombeida | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The crypto market’s bullishness may be tipping into speculative frenzy, if the latest MicroStrategy-style copycat is any indication.

On Monday, a little-known Canadian vape company saw its stock surge on plans to enter the crypto treasury game – but this time with Binance Coin (BNB), the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, excluding the dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether (USDT), according to CoinGecko.

Shares of CEA Industries, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker VAPE, rocketed more than 800% at one point after the company announced its plans. CEA, along with investment firm 10X Capital and YZi Labs, said it would offer a $500 million private placement to raise proceeds to buy Binance Coin for its corporate treasury. Shares ended the session up nearly 550%, giving the company a market cap of about $48 million.

Given the more crypto-friendly regulatory environment this year, more public companies have adopted the MicroStrategy playbook of using debt financing and equity sales to buy bitcoin to hold on their balance sheet to try to increase shareholder returns, pushing bitcoin to new records.

Now, with the S&P 500 trading at new records, the resurgence of meme mania and a pro-crypto White House supporting the crypto industry, investors are looking further out on the risk spectrum of crypto hoping for bigger gains.

In recent months, investors have rotated out of bitcoin and into ether, which led to a burst of companies seeking a similar treasury strategy around ether. SharpLink Gaming, whose board is chaired by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, was one of the first to make the move. Other companies like DeFi Development Corp, renamed from Janover, are making similar moves around Solana.

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Trump Organization says Amazon, Walmart, eBay sellers are hawking knockoff shirts, hats, mugs

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Trump Organization says Amazon, Walmart, eBay sellers are hawking knockoff shirts, hats, mugs

Donald Trump

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The Trump Organization has filed a lawsuit against unnamed online merchants it said are hawking counterfeit merchandise promoting President Donald Trump.

In the suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Florida, the company accused the merchants of selling “inferior imitations” of Trump-branded products on several online marketplaces, including Amazon, Walmart and eBay.

The Trump Organization company, which is owned by Trump, sells a variety of branded merchandise through its website, including a gold T1 smartphone. The Trump Organization alleges the online merchants didn’t license its trademarks and weren’t authorized resellers of genuine merchandise.

“By selling counterfeit products that purport to be genuine and authorized products using the TRUMP trademarks, defendants cause confusion and deception in the marketplace,” the complaint says.

Coffee mugs, hats, t-shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with “Trump,” “Trump 2028,” and American flags were among the examples of alleged knockoffs listed in the suit.

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The Trump Organization intends to file a motion to seal an exhibit listing the merchants’ identities, according to the complaint.

The company is seeking to prevent the merchants from using Trump trademarks. It also asks a judge to compel Amazon and other online marketplaces to destroy the alleged counterfeit goods and close the merchants’ selling accounts.

Representatives from Amazon, Walmart and eBay didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Amazon, Walmart and eBay all operate thriving online marketplaces that allow third-party businesses to list and sell goods. The companies have all battled issues in the past around the sale of inauthentic or unsafe goods on their platforms.

Amazon sellers looked to cash in on Trump’s return to the White House earlier this year.

Sales of Trump-branded merchandise, including calendars, toilet paper and greeting cards, spiked in January, according to e-commerce marketing company Omnisend, which collected its data from seller software provider JungleScout.

In the lead-up to last year’s election, Amazon sellers made $140 million from Trump-related merchandise and $26 million from products promoting presidential candidate and former Vice President Kamala Harris, Omnisend found.

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Firefly Aerospace sets IPO range that would value rocket maker at $5.5 billion

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Firefly Aerospace sets IPO range that would value rocket maker at .5 billion

Firefly Aerospace CEO Jason Kim sits for an interview at the Firefly Aerospace mission operations center in Leander, Texas, on July 9, 2025.

Sergio Flores | Reuters

Firefly Aerospace will price shares at $35 to $39 each in its upcoming initial public offering, a deal that would value the rocket maker at about $5.5 billion.

The Texas-based space company said in an updated prospectus Monday that it’s planning to sell about 16.2 million shares. The offering could raise up to $631.8 million.

Earlier this month, Firefly filed its plans to go public on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “FLY.”

Its debut comes amid a renewed push in the space race, as billionaire-led companies such as Elon Musk‘s SpaceX funnel more money into space activities and startups try their luck at the public markets.

Space tech firm Voyager went public in June, while reusable rocket developer Innovative Rocket Technologies said it plans to debut through a $400 million special purpose acquisition company merger.

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Firefly’s public market launch also coincides with a revival in IPO activity as debilitating interest rates and an overhang from President Donald Trump‘s tariff plans begin to clear. Design software company Figma is slated to go public this week after raising its range.

Firefly makes rockets, space tugs and lunar landers, including satellite launching rockets known as Alpha. At the end of March, the company reported a sixfold jump in revenue from $8.3 million a year ago to $55.9 million.

The company also reported a net loss of about $60.1 million, up from a loss of $52.8 million a year ago, and said its backlog totaled about $1.1 billion.

Some of Firefly’s major backers include AE Industrial Partners, which led an early investing round in the company. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman invested $50 million in the startup this May, and Firefly says it has collaborated with Lockheed Martin, L3Harris and NASA.

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