The company said it announced the move because it expects the news to leak.
“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,” OpenAI said in the announcement. “But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”
It was reported June 1 that OpenAI, rival AI startup Anthropic and Elon Musk’s SpaceX would represent three of the largest stock market listings ever.
Anthropic said June 1 that it had confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the SEC about its IPO. The company said in its announcement: “This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review. The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors.”
OpenAI was valued at $852 billion in a March funding round in which it raised $122 billion.
The firm said at the time that it was generating $2 billion in revenue per month, up from $1 billion per quarter at the end of 2024.
“At this stage, we are growing revenue four times faster than the companies who defined the Internet and mobile eras, including Alphabet and Meta,” OpenAI said in a March press release.
About six weeks later, on May 15, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar said the company may raise more capital because of the need for compute.
“It will depend somewhat on matching the demand that we’re seeing, the revenue that we’ll create, and hence the cash flows, and then that gap to wanting to buy compute out into future years,” Friar said. “So, I’m not averse to raising more capital, although right now that $122 billion gives us a lot of optionality, and I think de-risks a lot of what we need to go do in the market at the moment.”
