SpaceX is reportedly on track to go public as soon as this June. OpenAI is working with investment bankers on its own path to the public markets. Anthropic is generating the kind of revenue growth investors want to see. As a result, something may be about to happen that has been too rare in recent years: big new opportunities for the public to invest in America’s most dynamic growth companies.
This would be welcome. For too long, venture funds, private equity firms, wealthy investors, and insiders have scooped up the first chance to profit from the most innovative companies, while Main Street investors have been forced to wait until the companies are bigger, older, and much of the upside is already gone.
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The universe of public companies has shrunk dramatically. The number of U.S. exchange-listed companies has fallen from roughly 7,800 in 1997 to about 4,700 today, meaning many of America’s most dynamic businesses spend more of their high-growth years out of reach of ordinary investors.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins says reversing that trend is central to his agenda to “Make IPOs Great Again.” The SEC’s recent proposals to simplify filer-status categories, expand scaled disclosure, and reduce unnecessary burdens on small and mid-sized companies are a step in the right direction.
Washington should welcome IPOs for SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, but also ask why so many other companies wait so long or never go public at all. Policymakers need to rethink how Main Street investors can get a bigger slice of growth-stage action. That does not mean forcing private companies into public offerings, nor does it mean weakening anti-fraud rules or denying investors information they need. It means making the public-company model more attractive, less costly, and less legally perilous so that going public again becomes a rational growth-financing option rather than a last-stage liquidity event.
Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act is to blame for much of the decline in public offerings. It requires outside auditor attestation, which adds a high fixed cost, especially for smaller and mid-sized companies that cannot absorb compliance costs as easily as Apple, Microsoft, or JPMorgan. Congress recognizes this problem by giving emerging growth companies temporary relief from 404(b). It should make that relief broader and longer-lasting, particularly for companies below reasonable revenue or public float thresholds, which is the value of shares held by outside public investors rather than insiders or controlling shareholders. The goal should be strong financial reporting, not forcing newly public companies into a large-company audit regime before they are ready.
The second big factor that has stanched the flow of public offerings is class-action litigation. For public companies, a bad quarter can quickly become a lawsuit. A stock drop, disappointing forecast, regulatory inquiry, or negative news story can trigger claims that management misled investors, even when the underlying business risk was real, disclosed, or simply part of normal market uncertainty. The costs are enormous: legal fees, settlement pressure, higher directors and officers liability insurance, management distraction, and a constant incentive to over-lawyer every public statement. This litigation tax does not make companies more innovative or investors wealthier. It makes going public less attractive.
Congress should tighten pleading standards, require plaintiffs to identify a genuinely new corrective disclosure, discourage cases built on hindsight, and impose real unpleasant consequences for meritless claims. Investors should retain the right to sue for fraud. But the law should distinguish between actual fraud and lawyer-driven stock-drop litigation.
A third priority is to make public-company regulation simpler, more scalable, and more focused on material information. The SEC’s May 2026 proposals move in that direction. They would simplify filer-status categories, expand scaled disclosure, and give more small and mid-sized companies relief from rules designed for the largest public firms. It is right to preserve strong protections for investors while reducing needless burdens on companies that should be encouraged to go and stay public.
Congress should build on this approach. It should raise and index public-float thresholds, extend the IPO on-ramp beyond five years, exempt more smaller companies from 404(b), and require the SEC to review disclosure mandates through a strict financial-materiality lens. Public companies should disclose what a reasonable investor needs to evaluate the business, not every item demanded by political campaigns, activists, or regulatory fashion.
Congress should also modernize capital-raising rules. A company that has gone public should have easier access to shelf registration and follow-on offerings, so it can raise capital quickly when markets are open. Companies should not be trapped in a slow, expensive registration process when investors are willing to provide capital and market conditions are favorable.
THE DATA CENTER DOOMERS MUST BE DEFEATED
The possible IPOs of SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic should be a turning point. The goal is not to give special treatment to Silicon Valley giants. It is to create a public market in which the next generation of SpaceXs and OpenAIs can raise capital before the upside is gone.
America should not reserve its greatest growth stories for private insiders while ordinary savers and investors get access only after the steepest gains have been creamed off. Let great companies go public. Let ordinary Americans invest early enough to matter. And let the public markets be public again.
