Aug 15 (Reuters) - Current and former employees of

OpenAI are looking to sell nearly $6 billion worth of the

ChatGPT maker's shares to investors including SoftBank Group

and Thrive Capital, a source familiar with the matter

told Reuters on Friday.

The potential deal would value the company at $500 billion,

up from $300 billion currently, underscoring both OpenAI's rapid

gains in users and revenue, as well as the intense competition

among artificial intelligence firms for talent.

SoftBank, Thrive and Dragoneer Investment Group did not

immediately respond to requests for comment. All three

investment firms are existing OpenAI investors.

Bloomberg News, which had earlier reported the development,

said discussions are in early stages and the size of the sale

could change.

The secondary share sale investment adds to SoftBank's role

in leading OpenAI's $40 billion primary funding round.

Bolstered by its flagship product ChatGPT, OpenAI doubled

its revenue in the first seven months of the year, reaching an

annualized run rate of $12 billion, and is on track to reach $20

billion by the end of the year, Reuters reported earlier in

August.

Microsoft ( MSFT )-backed OpenAI has about 700 million

weekly active users for its ChatGPT products, a surge from about

400 million in February.

(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Shreya

Biswas and Sriraj Kalluvila)