OpenAI gives some employees a ‘special’ multimillion-dollar bonus

On the day before the launch of GPT-5, CEO of Openai Sam Taman The employees surprised a message in the recession.

Altman wrote, according to a copy of the letter that was shared with me: “As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we were looking at the companies of the technical teams that we give the movement in the market.” He announced that Openai will present a “one -time prize” for researchers and software engineers in a handful of Orgs, including applied engineering, expansion and safety.

“We intend to continue to increase companies and we continue to achieve better and better as a company,” wrote. “But we wanted to be transparent about this because it is something new for us.” Then he thanked the employees for “their excellent work towards building AGI”.

The reward amount will differ for each qualified employee based on the role and seniority, according to my sources. The highest payments in the mid -millions of numbers will be the most flexible researchers in Openai, all of whom make millions annually. Engineers are expected to receive, at the same time, bonuses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars on average. Each quarter of the rewards will be paid over the next two years, with the option to receive money in Openai, Cash or a mixture of the two. Nearly 1,000 employees, or about a third of the full -time workforce in Openai, qualified.

At the same time, Openai is preparing to allow more employees to formulate millions of their acquired shares for investors. Altman said in particular that they are expected to be able to sell at a much higher share price than the price of $ 274 granted in the Openai financing round earlier this year, which the company is estimated at $ 300 billion. Bloomberg I stated this week that Openai may amount to $ 500 billion in the upcoming tender.

Openai spokesman refused to comment. Information I first reported the news that research and engineering staff are getting a one -time bonus, but Altman’s note is reported here for the first time.

Openai has not provided such a payment for such a wide range of employees before. The step sheds light on the fierce wars of talents of artificial intelligence talents. Altman has lost a series of major researchers in Meta in recent weeks, where a Chatgpt created manner, Shangjia ZhaoHis name was the scholars. Senior Research officials at Openaii, Mark ChenCompare internally Mark Zuckerberg Unjust hunting in a home invasion, while Altman told the employees that “missionaries will overcome mercenaries.”

Not only Zuckerberg to which altman must confront. My source says that Elon Musk XAI has also been presented on aggressive offers to attract the best Openai’s talent. In addition, the former CTO Mira Moratti She recently stolen many company leaders to help start its competitive laboratory, thinking machines.

By not giving both Openai the “private” bonus, Altman risks raising jealousy among his employees who worked without stopping this week’s launch and was excluded. Currently, it seems that everyone is riding high from the loud version of the GPT-5. After a launch event on Thursday, I told Altman that he joined the employees in a happy, festive hour in Splash, a sporty sport bar at the Chase Center near the Openai headquarters in the center of San Francisco.