New York
OpenAI has secretly filed for an initial public offering, the most anticipated market launch in recent history and a huge payoff for early investors.
Conclusion SpaceX’s lead comes after OpenAI’s chief competitor, Anthropic, announced plans to go public The launch is scheduled for Friday.
All three listings are expected to be hundreds of billions of dollars in large sales, a chance for everyday investors to buy into some of the hottest AI startups and a key test of the market’s appetite for AI companies.
OpenAI said it has not yet decided on the timing. And because the filing is confidential, it’s not yet clear how many shares the company plans to sell or at what price.
“It may take some time because the things we want to do are easier as a private company,” it said in a post on its newsroom page. But the filing “gives us the option to go public as soon as possible,” the company said.
Going public would give Wall Street a window into OpenAI’s funding The company is pouring billions into AI infrastructure and computing resources. Investors dumped tech stocks last week as they questioned whether the recent run-up in those stocks had gone too far.
OpenAI It was last valued at $852 billion after raising $122 billion in March, but has faced pressure to prove it can generate cash to match that valuation. Sarah Friar, OpenAI’s chief financial officer, raised eyebrows last November when she suggested that the US government should “recoup” the company’s massive spending on chips and data centers, which she later backtracked on.
OpenAI expanded its monetization options for its popular chatbot and flagship product, ChatGPT, last year by introducing cheaper $8 tiers and advertising. It expects a cheaper plan to grow its subscriber base to 122 million this year and said in April that advertising will be its biggest revenue driver by 2030.
OpenAI has spent the last year trying to prove it’s more than just ChatGPT. It released a web browser, announced plans to develop consumer hardware products, introduced an AI agent that could code and manage applications on a person’s computer, and developed AI tools and programs for use in government, healthcare, and finance.
OpenAI recently scored a courtroom victory when Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the company was barred by the statute of limitations. The case, had it gone in Musk’s favor, would have caused a major shakeup for OpenAI’s leadership just ahead of its IPO. (Musk’s lawyer has said he plans to appeal.)
However, OpenAI’s road to IPO was not entirely smooth. The company is grappling with increasing competition from archrivals Anthropic and Google, facing lawsuits alleging ChatGPT played a role in shootings and suicides, and battling a general consumer backlash against AI. In 2023, OpenAI nearly collapsed after CEO Sam Altman was fired as CEO.
Anthropic’s valuation recently surpassed OpenAI’s last May fundraising round, which valued it at $965 billion — highlighting the fierce competition between the companies. Both are racing to capture consumers and businesses that are spending heavily on AI tools.
This story has been updated with additional details and context.
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