Anthropic confidentially files for US IPO, ahead of OpenAI’s filing

OpenAI has joined the circus of private AI companies with confirmed plans to go public. On Monday, the ChatGPT creator announced it had filed a confidential S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC). The document is the first step toward pursuing an IPO and stock listing. It follows in the footsteps of competitors like Anthropic and Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX, which has made AI ambitions a core focus of its prospectus. Filing confidentially allows OpenAI to provide financials and other sensitive information to the SEC before it becomes public to potential investors. Despite the secrecy, OpenAI shared the decision publicly as “we expect it to leak,” it said in a statement. While it has put the wheels in motion, OpenAI doesn’t seem to be in any rush to become public. “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 in its 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.” OpenAI is targeting up to a $1 trillion valuation through the IPO (which likely won’t come until at least September), according to a Reuters report, based on people familiar with the matter. However, the company has yet to disclose a listing date or targeted share price.  A slew of AI companies are planning IPOs OpenAI helped usher in a new wave of AI advancement when it launched ChatGPT at the end of 2022. While it’s still one of the biggest names in its field, its rival Anthropic has taken the lead this year with its LLM Claude. Anthropic is currently valued at $965 billion, while OpenAI has a valuation of $852 billion.  Now, OpenAI is again trailing Anthropic, sharing its SEC filing news exactly one week after Anthropic made its own announcement. Anthropic’s IPO date is also up in the air, with the company simply stating it will have the “option to go public after the SEC completes its review.”  Meanwhile, SpaceX is set to go public this Friday, June 12—likely becoming the first trillion dollar IPO in history. The space company is valued at $1.25 trillion after merging with xAI this past February. It reportedly aims to raise up to $75 billion during its IPO.

OpenAI submitted confidential IPO paperwork to the SEC on Monday, the company confirmed. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are advising on a potential listing that could come as soon as the autumn, according to people familiar with the matter. The filing makes OpenAI the third major AI-adjacent company to move towards public markets in a single […] This story continues at The Next Web

OpenAI’s filing for an IPO in the US comes hot on the heels of rival AI giant Anthropic.

OpenAI Files Confidentially For IPO, Joining SpaceX and Anthropic In Capitalizing On AI Frenzy The rush by AI companies to go public before the window closes (i.e., "market conditions" emerge) entered its final lap late on Monday, when OpenAI joined its two mega peers in filing for a blockbuster IPO that could value the ChatGPT creator at more than $1tn as it races rival Anthropic to list its shares publicly, following an imminent offering by SpaceX. OpenAI said it had confidentially submitted a draft IPO prospectus to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, formally kicking off the process for one of the year’s most hotly anticipated debuts. The company is also planning to launch a tender sale of its shares to provide liquidity to employees in the coming weeks, before the company goes public, Bloomberg reported. Why employees would want to sell shares ahead of an IPO is not exactly clear, unless they fear the market reaction to the public offering would disappoint.  OpenAI’s listing announcement comes days before SpaceX is set to IPO in a deal that could raise a record $86bn and value Elon Musk’s rockets-to-AI conglomerate at $1.78tn. Anthropic, the startup behind the chatbot Claude, said last week that it had filed confidentially for an IPO of its own. The company soared to a $965 billion valuation in its latest private funding round - above OpenAI’s for the first time - as its revenue surged. The three Wall Street listings comes at a time of unbridled euphoria among investors over AI, which has helped propel US stocks to a series of record highs but also prompted worries that markets are overheating. Last week, Goldman published a note seeking to preempt the big question: "Can Markets Absorb Massive Stock Supply From Coming Mega IPOs Without A Crash:" While Goldman did not express concerns about the coming flood of stock supply (its argument is that demand will more than offset the flood of new shares), the bank which is also a lead underwriter for both SpaceX and Anthropic calculated that recent and upcoming IPOs will result in roughly $500 billion of additional unlocked shares available to sell in 2026 and likely a larger quantity in 2027 as insiders sell and distribute their stakes to public (mostly retail) shareholders. The bank expects the majority of potential equity supply from the current pipeline of IPOs will become free float in 2027.  OpenAI’s IPO - which also comes at a time when CEO Sam Altman has floated handing out shares to US taxpayers ostensibly in hopes that such an action would lead to a government backstop and/or bailout if and when the AI cycle turns - will mark a test of investors’ appetite for a company posting booming revenue growth but also staggering losses that are forecast to continue for many years as the company spends vast sums on data centres and other infrastructure: its funding commitments to hyperscalar companies are well north of $1 trillion and unless the company manages to dramatically boost its revenue growth it will find itself woefully undercapitalized in coming years. Hence the IPO, as well as a bevy of private credit deals which mask the company's true debt exposure.  OpenAI has been investing heavily in AI research to compete with rivals including Google and Anthropic, as well as to expand the computing capacity needed to serve ChatGPT’s 900mn users. In February, the company told investors it was planning to spend about $600 billion on AI infrastructure by 2030. It said in a statement on Monday that it had 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”. “But it’s a complicated set of trade-offs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best,” it added. A public debut in 2026 would also pit Altman squarely against Elon Musk on a different plane than the failed lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO. SpaceX, Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI firm, is targeting an IPO at a valuation of roughly $1.8 trillion on Thursday, which would immediately make it one of the world’s most valuable public companies. As an indication of the staggering demand for AI exposure, OpenAI has already dwarfed even SpaceX’s IPO in a single funding round. The company completed a deal to raise $122 billion from investors at an $852 billion valuation. The ChatGPT maker also planned to launch an employee share sale ahead of going public at its current $852bn price tag, according to people familiar with the matter. One said OpenAI’s decision to announce its confidential filing was intended to give employees who were considering selling shares “transparency” about the upcoming IPO. US tech groups often file IPO paperwork privately, keeping their financial figures out of the public eye while the SEC reviews documents. That allows start-ups to gauge investor demand, make revisions and sometimes scrap IPO plans without broader scrutiny. The San Francisco-based company’s move to progress its listing plans received a boost after a California court last month threw out Musk’s legal case against OpenAI and its chief Sam Altman.  A public debut in 2026 would also pit Altman squarely against Elon Musk on a different plane than the failed lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO. SpaceX, Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI firm, is targeting an IPO at a valuation of roughly $1.8 trillion on Thursday, which would immediately make it one of the world’s most valuable public companies. OpenAI had been working with bankers at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and lawyers at Cooley for the past few months, people familiar with its preparations previously told the FT. Monday’s filing sets OpenAI on a path to start trading as early as the autumn, they said. It is already one of the world’s most valuable private companies, after closing a record funding round of up to $122bn in March. As part of that deal it raised $3bn from retail investors, who will be given a wider opportunity to invest in the start-up when it becomes publicly traded. Tyler Durden Mon, 06/08/2026 - 21:20

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP)—ChatGPT-maker OpenAI on Monday took the first step toward going public, one week after arch-rival Anthropic announced its own filing, as both companies look to raise the massive sums needed to expand. In a social media post, the Sam Altman-led company said it had confidentially submitted an S-1 registration statement to US securities regulators but had "not decided on timing yet" for any potential debut. OpenAI's move follows a confidential filing by Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, which announced last Monday that it had taken the same step. "It may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company," OpenAI said, while noting the filing gives it "the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best." Going public -- known as an IPO, or initial public offering -- means ordinary investors can buy a slice of a company for the first time. It is also one of the biggest ways a company can raise money fast. Founded in San Francisco in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab by Altman, Elon Musk and others, OpenAI burst into the mainstream with the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022. The company has since restructured as a for-profit corporation and has grown into one of the world's most valuable private companies. Training and running cutting-edge AI models require billions of dollars in computing infrastructure, and both OpenAI and Anthropic have been spending heavily to secure data center capacity and chips amid fierce competition to lead the industry. Both companies have also raised record amounts of private investment to meet their ambitions, a process that may have reached its limits, forcing a turn to Wall Street for still more funding. But going public requires making a company's internal finances public, a process that both loss-making companies will want to delay for as long as possible. OpenAI acknowledged the decision involved "a complicated set of tradeoffs" but said the filing preserves its flexibility. Anthropic, valued at $965 billion following a $65 billion fundraising round, has positioned itself as a safety-focused rival to OpenAI in the generative AI race. OpenAI was valued at $852 billion in March, putting it behind Anthropic by that measure heading into what analysts say could be a landmark period for AI listings. Both companies appear set to follow Musk's SpaceX to Wall Street. SpaceX, which absorbed Musk's xAI lab, could see shares begin trading as early as Friday, targeting a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion in what would be the largest IPO in history. OpenAI said it decided to get ahead of the news, predicting the document would surface regardless. "We expect it to leak so we're just announcing it," the company said.