OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has announced a “special one-time award” for select employees, citing “movement in the market” for AI talent. The announcement, made via Slack the day before the anticipated launch of GPT-5, targets researchers and software engineers within the applied engineering, scaling, and safety organizations.
The bonuses are designed to vary based on an employee’s role and seniority. Top researchers could receive payouts in the mid-single-digit millions, while engineers are expected to average hundreds of thousands of dollars. These awards will be disbursed quarterly over a two-year period, with employees having the flexibility to choose payment in OpenAI stock, cash, or a combination of both.
Approximately 1,000 employees, which constitutes about one-third of OpenAI’s total workforce, are eligible for this special compensation. Altman’s message expressed the company’s intent to “keep increasing comp as we keep doing better and better as a company,” acknowledging the unique nature of this particular bonus. He also extended gratitude to employees for their “excellent work towards building AGI.”
Concurrently, OpenAI is preparing to allow more employees to cash out their vested stock. Altman has indicated private expectations for these shares to sell at a significantly higher price than the $274 per share valuation from the company’s earlier funding round this year, which valued OpenAI at $300 billion.
