OpenAI Headquarters: Location, Address, and San Francisco Offices
Last updated May 2026. Address and company facts from public sources; not stake or legal advice.
Key takeaway: OpenAI is based in San Francisco. Its main office address is 1455 Third Street in Mission Bay. The company grew from a small startup space into a large campus. This page explains the address, the move history, and what visitors should expect.
This guide covers the openai headquarters address, how the campus grew, and what the location means for the wider AI industry. For broader AI and tech context, see the Macro Markets blog.
Where is OpenAI headquarters?
OpenAI headquarters is in San Francisco, California, at 1455 Third Street in the Mission Bay neighborhood. The company also leases additional Mission Bay buildings nearby. OpenAI confirmed the Third Street sublease from Uber in 2023. Public listings identify this address as the primary openai headquarters location.
Current address: 1455 Third Street
The main openai HQ building sits at 1455 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94158. OpenAI and Uber spokespeople confirmed the sublease to real estate reporters in October 2023. The deal covered roughly 486,600 square feet across two buildings at 1455 and 1515 Third Street.
That footprint gave OpenAI room for more than 2,000 employees, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The lease was one of San Francisco's largest office deals since 2018. CoStar News quoted OpenAI spokesperson Hannah Wong. She said the company was "thrilled to continue scaling our company in San Francisco."
Uber kept two other buildings on the same campus at 1655 and 1725 Third Street. The four-building complex sits next to Chase Center. It was built as Uber's global HQ before the pandemic shifted remote-work plans.
1455 Third Street is the address most often linked to openai HQ in public records. Business directories, news reports, and OpenAI on Wikipedia list this location.
Mission Bay context
Mission Bay, San Francisco is a waterfront district south of SoMa. It was once industrial land. Today it holds biotech labs, UCSF research buildings, residential towers, and major tech offices.
OpenAI's openai HQ cluster fits a wider pattern. Mission Bay has become a hub for large-scale office campuses. Uber, Gap, Dropbox, and others built or leased large space here. OpenAI followed that path rather than staying in smaller Mission District offices.
The neighborhood offers transit access via Muni and proximity to downtown. For a fast-growing AI company, Mission Bay provides contiguous blocks of modern office space.
Real estate firm JLL tracked AI office growth in San Francisco. After OpenAI's 2024 growth, the total AI footprint in the city jumped from 4.3 million to 4.7 million square feet, according to the San Francisco Standard.
OpenAI headquarters address (quick facts)
Quick facts at a glance:
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Primary address: 1455 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94158.
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Neighborhood: Mission Bay.
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City and state: San Francisco, California, United States.
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Building type: Subleased office campus (former Uber HQ buildings).
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Third Street footprint: About 486,600 sq ft at 1455 and 1515 Third (2023 deal).
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More Mission Bay space: 550 Terry Francois Blvd (2024) and 1800 Owens St (reported 2026).
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Former HQ: Pioneer Building, Mission District (vacated August 2024).
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Public access: Private office; no public tours.
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Official contact: OpenAI website.
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Company founded: December 2015, San Francisco area.
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CEO (as of 2025/2026): Sam Altman.
Square footage figures come from press reports. Totals may change as leases are amended.
History of OpenAI offices in San Francisco
OpenAI's physical footprint tracks its rise from a non-profit research lab to a global AI powerhouse.
2015 founding
OpenAI launched in December 2015 as a non-profit AI research company. Founders included Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever. The company's first blog post described a mission to advance digital intelligence for broad human benefit.
Early work happened in informal settings. OpenAI on Wikipedia notes that operations started in Greg Brockman's living room. Funding pledges reached $1 billion, though actual donations lagged those promises in early years. San Francisco was the natural base from day one.
Pioneer Building era
OpenAI later moved to the historic Pioneer Building in the Mission District. The structure sits at 2185–2199 Folsom Street and 3180 18th Street. It was built in 1902 as a trunk factory and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Pioneer Building became synonymous with early OpenAI culture. ChatGPT was developed there. The office housed researchers through the GPT-3 and early ChatGPT era.
By 2023, OpenAI still held space in the Mission. The San Francisco Chronicle reported leases at 3180 18th Street (~40,000 sq ft) and 575 Florida Street (~100,000 sq ft). Those offices sat roughly three miles from today's openai HQ in Mission Bay.
OpenAI vacated the Pioneer Building in August 2024. Mission Bay became the dominant campus.
Mission Bay growth
The shift to Mission Bay began in late 2023. OpenAI subleased 1455 and 1515 Third Street from Uber. Spokespeople for both companies confirmed the arrangement to CoStar News and the San Francisco Standard.
In September 2024, OpenAI signed another major lease. The San Francisco Business Times and San Francisco Standard reported a deal for 550 Terry Francois Boulevard. That building had served as Old Navy's HQ. The lease added roughly 315,000 to 350,000 square feet.
Reports in 2026 described a third growth. Yahoo Finance and The Real Deal cited a sublease of roughly 280,000 square feet at 1800 Owens Street. That property is known as The Exchange, a former Dropbox HQ complex. Press coverage suggests OpenAI's Mission Bay holdings exceed one million square feet across multiple blocks.
The openai HQ story is a campus strategy, not a single building. OpenAI consolidated from scattered Mission District offices into a dense Mission Bay cluster.
Inside OpenAI's Mission Bay campus
Public tours of the openai HQ interior are not available. What follows is drawn from press reporting only. No unsourced claims about floor plans, amenities, or security are included.
Third Street buildings (1455 and 1515). CoStar News and the San Francisco Standard confirmed OpenAI's 2023 sublease from Uber. The two buildings total roughly 486,600 square feet. The San Francisco Chronicle reported space for more than 2,000 employees. Uber retained 1655 and 1725 Third Street on the same four-building campus near Chase Center.
550 Terry Francois Boulevard. The San Francisco Standard reported in September 2024 that OpenAI leased the former Old Navy HQ. The Real Deal cited about 315,000 square feet. The San Francisco Business Times noted the six-story building sits less than a block from the Third Street campus.
1800 Owens Street (The Exchange). Yahoo Finance reported in 2026 that OpenAI subleased roughly 280,000 square feet at the former Dropbox complex. The Real Deal noted the building totals about 750,000 square feet and sits roughly half a mile from existing OpenAI offices.
Workforce scale. Press estimates tied the Third Street lease to room for 2,000-plus employees. Combined Mission Bay holdings suggest capacity for a much larger San Francisco workforce. Exact current headcount at each building is not publicly disclosed.
What press coverage does not describe in detail: specific lab layouts, cafeteria design, or research floor access. Those details remain private.
Can you visit OpenAI HQ?
No. OpenAI headquarters is a private company office. It is not open to the public. There are no visitor tours, retail spaces, or walk-in demo centers at 1455 Third Street or the other Mission Bay buildings.
Employees, contractors, and invited guests access the campus under company security policies. Federal court records from 2025 referenced security incidents at the Mission Bay openai HQ, underscoring that the site is a secured workplace.
If you need to reach the company, use official channels on OpenAI. The website lists support, press, and partnership contact options. Do not travel to Third Street expecting entry without a scheduled appointment.
Researchers, journalists, and business partners should contact OpenAI through those official routes. Showing up at the openai HQ address without authorization will not grant access.
OpenAI company structure and who owns the company
Understanding who owns OpenAI requires separating its non-profit roots from its commercial arm. Figures below reflect public reporting as of 2025/2026 and may shift with future deals.
Nonprofit and public benefit corporation
OpenAI began as OpenAI, Inc., a non-profit governed by a board. In 2019, it created a capped-profit subsidiary to attract outside stake. That model let OpenAI raise capital while the non-profit board retained mission oversight.
A 2025 restructuring converted the for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation (PBC). OpenAI on Wikipedia describes the non-profit retaining a 26% stake in the PBC after that change. The arrangement aims to balance investor returns with the founding mission.
Microsoft and other investors
Microsoft has been OpenAI's largest company partner. Public filings and press coverage describe more than $13 billion in stake over multiple rounds. Microsoft also provides Azure cloud infrastructure used to train and serve models.
As of 2025/2026, ownership percentages reported in public sources include roughly 27% for Microsoft and about 47% for employees and other investors, with the non-profit at 26%. These figures come from restructuring announcements and secondary sources. Exact cap tables are not fully public.
In October 2025, reports described a $6.6 billion share sale valuing OpenAI at roughly $500 billion. Valuations and ownership stakes change with each funding round. Treat any single snapshot as provisional.
Caution: Corporate structure, valuation, and ownership data move quickly in AI. Verify current figures through OpenAI announcements before making financial decisions. This article is not stake or legal advice.
Founders, leadership, and why Elon Musk left OpenAI
OpenAI's leadership bench shaped both its research direction and its San Francisco footprint.
Founders. The December 2015 launch named Sam Altman and Elon Musk as co-chairs. Greg Brockman became CTO. Ilya Sutskever served as research director. Other founding members included Trevor Blackwell, Andrej Karpathy, John Schulman, and Wojciech Zaremba, among others.
Current leadership. Sam Altman has served as CEO through most of OpenAI's commercial rise. Bret Taylor has chaired the board in recent periods. Check OpenAI for the latest leadership page.
Elon Musk's departure. Musk left OpenAI's board in 2018. Public accounts cite disagreements over control, safety strategy, and OpenAI's shift toward a for-profit model. Musk later founded xAI, a competing AI company. In 2024, OpenAI vacated the Pioneer Building while Musk's xAI moved into that space.
Musk and OpenAI have also been involved in legal disputes over founding agreements and competition. Those cases are separate from the openai HQ location but illustrate how founder splits reshaped the company's path.
OpenAI HQ and the broader AI geography story
The openai HQ campus is one node in a larger map. San Francisco and the Bay Area remain the densest U. S. cluster for AI labs, startups, and infrastructure.
San Francisco's AI cluster
Mission Bay anchors one end of San Francisco's AI office growth. Anthropic, Scale AI, and other firms hold large Bay Area space. JLL's tracking showed AI companies accounting for a rising share of city lease activity in 2024.
OpenAI's decision to expand in San Francisco rather than relocate HQ elsewhere sent a signal. Despite remote-work trends, the ChatGPT maker doubled down on Mission Bay. That choice stabilized a pandemic-hit office market and concentrated AI talent in one neighborhood.
The Pioneer Building exit and Mission Bay consolidation mirror industry maturation. Early-stage scrappy offices give way to campus-scale operations as revenue and headcount grow.
Prediction markets and AI geography
Where companies like OpenAI sit affects more than commutes. It shapes how markets price AI breakthroughs, regulation, and competition.
Prediction markets aggregate beliefs about future events into tradable prices. When OpenAI announces a new model or a major lease, those events can move market odds on AI capability timelines, antitrust action, or regional tech employment.
Readers interested in how forecast markets work can start with Macro Markets' prediction markets guide. The mechanics apply beyond sports. Political, economic, and technology outcomes are all common subjects.
An openai HQ growth is a real-estate fact. It is also a signal about hiring plans and compute demand. Traders and analysts sometimes read such signals alongside model-release calendars and partnership news.
The Macro Markets blog covers AI and tech news with that lens. OpenAI's multi-building campus is the most visible symbol of AI concentration in San Francisco.
FAQ
What is the OpenAI headquarters address?
The primary openai HQ address is 1455 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94158, in Mission Bay. OpenAI also leases additional Mission Bay buildings at 1515 Third Street, 550 Terry Francois Boulevard, and reportedly 1800 Owens Street.
Is OpenAI HQ in San Francisco?
Yes. OpenAI was founded in the San Francisco area in 2015. Its current openai HQ cluster is in Mission Bay. The company vacated its former Pioneer Building HQ in the Mission District in 2024.
Can the public visit OpenAI HQ?
No. The openai HQ campus is private. Contact OpenAI online for support, press inquiries, or partnerships.
How big is OpenAI's Mission Bay office footprint?
Press reports describe roughly 486,600 square feet at Third Street (2023), plus about 315,000–350,000 square feet at 550 Terry Francois (2024), and roughly 280,000 square feet at 1800 Owens Street (2026 reports). Totals exceed one million square feet if all deals are counted together.
Who owns OpenAI?
OpenAI uses a non-profit plus public benefit corporation structure. As of 2025/2026 public reporting, ownership is split among the non-profit (~26%), Microsoft (~27%), and employees and investors (~47%). Figures change with funding rounds.
Did OpenAI move from the Pioneer Building?
Yes. OpenAI based at the Pioneer Building in the Mission District for years. The company left in August 2024 and consolidated operations in Mission Bay.
Why did OpenAI lease space from Uber?
Uber built a large Mission Bay campus near Chase Center before the pandemic. Remote-work shifts left excess space. OpenAI subleased two buildings in 2023 in one of San Francisco's largest recent office deals.
Does OpenAI have offices outside San Francisco?
Public reporting has mentioned OpenAI evaluating space in other regions, including Silicon Valley. The openai HQ identity and largest contiguous footprint remain tied to San Francisco Mission Bay as of 2026 press coverage.
How does OpenAI HQ relate to AI prediction markets?
Corporate milestones, leases, headcount, product launches, inform how traders price AI-related outcomes. Macro Markets covers that intersection on its blog and in guides like its prediction markets guide.
The company's HQ at 1455 Third Street marks where a non-profit research project became a Mission Bay campus spanning multiple city blocks. For ongoing AI and tech analysis, visit the Macro Markets blog. For company-specific updates, rely on OpenAI and verified press sources.
