Public data on OpenAI’s private-market valuation shows that investors who bought around a ~$90B valuation in 2023 were well above water by the end of 2024.

Key points:

• In 2023–early 2024, OpenAI ran an employee tender offer that valued the company at about $86B, with reports of secondary transactions around that level; Jason’s comment about people “buying secondary at 90 billion” refers to buyers paying a modest premium over this price. (theinformation.com)
• By August 30, 2024, TechCrunch reported that secondary-market bids were already valuing OpenAI above $100B, with some bids implying valuations up to $143B, and a data provider (Caplight) estimating its value at over $111B based on secondary activity. That is already well above $90B. (techcrunch.com)
• On October 2, 2024, OpenAI closed a major $6.6B funding round that valued the company at about $157B, more than 70% higher than a $90B entry price. Multiple outlets (Reuters, MarketWatch, BusinessToday, others) reported this valuation. (investopedia.com)
• On November 26, 2024, CNBC reported a further $1.5B employee tender offer to SoftBank, explicitly stating that the share price in that deal matched the company’s most recent $157B funding valuation, confirming that this higher mark was still in effect heading into year‑end 2024. (cnbc.com)
• In 2025, valuations only climbed further (to $300B in a SoftBank‑led round and then $500B in secondary sales), underlining that there was no subsequent down‑round that would retroactively make the 2023 ~$90B buyers structurally underwater. (reuters.com)

Given that by end of 2024 OpenAI’s widely cited valuation was about $157B, far above the ~$90B secondary valuation Jason warned about, those investors were not underwater on paper. On the available evidence, the prediction that they would be “underwater next year” is therefore wrong.