en.Wedoany.com Reported - OpenAI is preparing for an initial public offering, with the company's valuation potentially reaching up to $1 trillion, making it one of the largest IPOs in history. After winning a key legal battle against Elon Musk, OpenAI has accelerated its IPO process.
This year will be a critical year for AI companies seeking to go public. SpaceXAI, Anthropic, and OpenAI all plan to conduct initial public offerings. According to Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI plans to confidentially file IPO documents in the coming weeks and is considering going public in September 2026. According to PitchBook data, the company has raised $186 billion in funding.
The timing of this IPO is crucial. The SpaceX IPO, expected as early as June, will test investor interest in the AI sector. If SpaceXAI can maintain its $1.75 trillion valuation, then OpenAI, whose ChatGPT accounts for 54% of generative AI traffic according to Similarweb data from April, could see its valuation climb further (compared to Grok's 3% share).
Industry reports indicate that major investment banks, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are advising OpenAI on the IPO draft. Following a recent large-scale private fundraising round, OpenAI's latest valuation stands at approximately $852 billion. Reuters previously reported that the company may seek to raise at least $60 billion in the IPO, although discussions remain preliminary. This confidence has driven shares of one of its largest investors, SoftBank, up 4.6% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with CNBC noting that SoftBank plans to hold about 13% of OpenAI's shares by October.
Despite the explosive growth and widespread adoption of generative AI, OpenAI is still in an investment phase. The company says ChatGPT has over 900 million weekly active users and at least 50 million subscribers, but it has reportedly missed internal revenue and user growth targets. OpenAI's internal goal is to achieve 1 billion weekly ChatGPT users. CFO Sarah Friar is concerned that if revenue growth is not fast enough, the company may not be able to afford necessary computing contracts. CEO Sam Altman told Reuters that this claim is "absurd," emphasizing that the company's goals are aligned, and they will buy as much computing power as possible and work together. Additionally, OpenAI faces intense competition from rivals like Anthropic and pressure to secure larger funding pools for computing infrastructure.
Michael Hartnett, Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist at BofA Securities, said on "The Flow Show" that after the IPOs of the three giants—SpaceXAI, Anthropic, and OpenAI—the concentration of tech stocks in the S&P 500 index will reach 48%. He noted "strong price action, retail frenzy, declining volatility... it's really a bubble," and argued that with the massive IPOs of AI giants, market concentration easily surpasses the Roaring Twenties, the Nifty Fifty of the 1970s, Japan in the 1980s, and the TMT bubble of the 1990s. OpenAI's listing plans evoke memories of Netscape's IPO in 1995, which is seen as a watershed moment for the tech bubble of the 1990s. OpenAI's IPO not only represents a financial milestone for the company but will also reveal investor interest in generative AI and whether this technology can transition from a capital-intensive craze to a sustainable, profitable industry. Conversely, this moment could also be viewed by analysts as a watershed for a future AI bubble.
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