OpenAI filed confidential paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, the company announced Monday.
OpenAI’s announcement caps off a race among artificial intelligence behemoths to garner investor interest. Claude-maker Anthropic filed to go public on June 1, while competitor SpaceX will debut on the Nasdaq on June 12. OpenAI’s announcement will test whether investors are willing to stomach yet another IPO in the industry amid fears of an AI bubble.
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“We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company,” the company stated. “But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”
The San Francisco firm, which was founded in 2015, closed its most recent funding round in March at a $852 billion valuation.
The ChatGPT-maker’s short history has not been without controversy. Brother and sister Dario and Daniela Amodei departed OpenAI in December 2020 amid disputes over the company’s strategic direction and AI safety. The pair founded Anthropic in 2021.
“If you can make a company that people want to join, that engages in practices that people think are reasonable, while managing to maintain its position in the ecosystem, people will copy it,” Amodei explained on the Lex Fridman Podcast of his decision to leave OpenAI. “And the fact that you were doing it, especially the fact that you’re doing it better than they are, causes them to change their behavior in a much more compelling way than if they’re your boss and you’re arguing with them.”
Two years later, the OpenAI board issued a surprise announcement that it would fire CEO Sam Altman. OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap told employees that the company had ousted Altman not because of “malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” but rather because of a “breakdown in communication between Sam and the board.”
Altman initially announced that he would join Microsoft before ultimately being reinstated by OpenAI after a five-day battle. Over 700 employees had threatened to quit if Altman was not reinstated.
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OpenAI’s IPO announcement comes shortly after the company prevailed last month in its legal battle with Elon Musk. The X owner, who had supported OpenAI as a nonprofit group following its 2015 founding, alleged that it had betrayed his trust in launching a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 and fully transitioning to a for-profit model in 2025.
“I will be filing an appeal with the Ninth Circuit, because creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X.
