OpenAI Initiates IPO Process: “We Haven’t Committed to a Timeline”

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has confidentially filed a draft of its prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), formally initiating the process for an initial public offering. The company follows competitor Anthropic, which had filed corresponding documents just one week earlier. Analysts expect a valuation of more than one trillion US dollars.

OpenAI Explains the Move

The company emphasized that the exact timing of the IPO has not yet been determined. An official statement reads:

“We recently filed confidentially an S-1. We expect it to leak, so we’re just announcing it. We haven’t committed to a timeline; it could be a while because there are things we want to do that are probably easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of trade-offs, and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that turns out to be best.”

The move comes after a California court last month dismissed Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman. This removed a significant legal obstacle to the IPO. OpenAI is working with investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as well as the law firm Cooley on the preparations.

The Third Phase of OpenAI

Alongside the IPO process, OpenAI describes a strategic turning point in its corporate history. After a first phase of pure AI research and a second phase as a product company, it now finds itself in a third phase, in which the economy is beginning to reshape itself around AI.

The central question is now how advanced AI can be made accessible, affordable, safe, and useful for every person and every organization. OpenAI explicitly emphasizes that a broad distribution of power is crucial for a positive future:

“A good AI future cannot be one in which a small number of institutions control most of the capabilities and most of the benefits. It should be a future in which many people, companies, communities, and countries can build, benefit, and exercise power.”

OpenAI’s Three Central Goals

The company has formulated three overarching strategic goals toward which it intends to direct its resources:

• Building an automated AI researcher: An AI system is intended to accelerate and increasingly automate the research process itself. OpenAI internally assumes that by March 2028, a significant portion of its own research could be conducted by AI systems in collaboration with human researchers.
• Accelerating the economy: By promoting scientific progress, productivity, and economic growth, the gains from AI are to be broadly shared. Everyone should have the opportunity to participate in the prosperity created by AI.
• Personal AGI for every person on Earth: Every person should have access to one of the most transformative technologies in human history and be able to use it according to their own wishes.

Anthropic and SpaceX Also on Their Way to the Stock Market

OpenAI is not the only technology company currently preparing to access the capital markets. AI competitor Anthropic had already filed its IPO documents one week before OpenAI and is also likely to expect a valuation in the trillion-dollar range.

SpaceX may make the leap even earlier: Elon Musk’s aerospace and technology conglomerate is planning its IPO for this very week. A valuation of around 1.78 trillion US dollars is expected, with a targeted issue proceeds of 86 billion dollars. SpaceX is positioning itself no longer merely as a space company, but is strongly emphasizing an AI narrative around the concept of so-called “Orbital Data Centers” — orbital data centers intended to provide AI infrastructure from space.

Fund managers are already preparing for a multi-billion-dollar wave of trading, as the stock markets must absorb the enormous new additions. OpenAI most recently completed a record financing round of up to 122 billion US dollars in March, raising three billion dollars from private investors who are to receive a broader investment opportunity at the time of the IPO.