As the competition for talent in the AI field intensifies, OpenAI has made a significant compensation decision. The company is offering special bonuses totaling millions of dollars to some employees working on its technical teams. Approximately 1,000 people, or one-third of OpenAI’s full-time workforce, are receiving these bonuses.
OpenAI is giving its employees a million-dollar bonus
The bonus decision was announced just one day before the launch of GPT-5. CEO Sam Altman announced in a message to employees on the company’s Slack channel that salaries are being reevaluated and that special bonuses will be given to employees in certain departments. These bonuses are aimed at researchers and software engineers in the applied engineering, scaling, and security teams.
Altman emphasized that the company’s financial situation is improving and that salary increases will continue. The amount of these special bonuses varies depending on the employee’s position and seniority. The highest payouts are currently given to researchers with annual incomes reaching millions of dollars. These awards will be in the single-digit millions.
Engineers are also expected to receive bonuses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Payments will be made quarterly over the next two years. Employees can receive their bonuses in cash, company stock, or a combination of both.
This is the first time OpenAI has implemented a bonus program of this magnitude. There is no information on the company’s previous distribution of similar awards. The move highlights the current state of the intense talent market in the AI sector.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is offering millions of dollars to acquire top talent in the field through Superintelligence Labs. Elon Musk’s xAI is similarly offering high salaries and bonuses to OpenAI employees.
Besides these developments, OpenAI is also preparing to sell employees’ shares to investors at high prices. At the beginning of the year, the company’s shares were trading at $274. According to Bloomberg, this price is expected to rise even further. The company’s valuation could reach $500 billion.
