OpenAI-backed Thrive Holdings agrees to buy ADT, adding a $15.3B security company to a portfolio OpenAI's FDEs work inside

Thrive Holdings, the holding company spun out of Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital, announced on October 29 that it will acquire physical security company ADT for $10 per share, about $7.6 billion in equity and $15.3 billion in total enterprise value, according to ADT. The Verge reports the all-cash deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027 and will take ADT private.

Thrive Holdings says it holds more than 75 companies and aims to own them long term and revitalize them with AI. OpenAI is both a partner and an investor, and TechCrunch reports that as a partner OpenAI supplies AI models and technology plus forward-deployed engineers to Thrive's companies. Neither side said how many FDEs will work with ADT or which AI products are planned, only that ADT will be the foundation of Thrive's smart home security business.

Why it matters for FDEs: this is one of the largest bets yet on the model where a lab's deployment engineers are embedded inside companies an investor owns, rather than sold to outside customers. If ADT joins that program, OpenAI FDE work extends into a large consumer security and monitoring business, a new kind of domain for the team.