ChatGPT developer OpenAI revealed Monday it had confidentially submitted an IPO application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, making it the third AI heavyweight — after Anthropic and SpaceX — to target a Nasdaq listing this year.
The company posted the news on X, acknowledging it expected the information to leak soon anyway. No timeline has been set for the actual offering, and OpenAI noted it may take a while because many things are easier to execute as a private firm. CEO Sam Altman and chief scientist Jakub Pachocki published a joint blog post comparing AI to 20th-century electricity: it didn't transform every home overnight, but as it spread, ordinary lives were completely reshaped.
“Expected to Leak Anyway” — OpenAI Goes Public on IPO Plans
OpenAI's announcement carried a blunt tone: we expect this news will eventually leak, so we are announcing it ourselves. Altman and Pachocki laid out a vision where AI systems can research and improve themselves autonomously. A good AI future, they argued, should not let a handful of institutions control most of the capability and gains — instead, more people, companies, communities, and countries should be able to participate, benefit, and hold influence.
AI IPO Trio: Anthropic Kicks Off, SpaceX Lists This Week
Rival Anthropic launched its IPO process on June 1. Elon Musk's SpaceX, which owns Grok developer xAI, is scheduled to list on Friday (June 13) at $135 per share, raising $75 billion and targeting a market valuation of $1.75 trillion.
OpenAI is also planning a secondary stock sale that allows employees to sell a portion of their holdings at the latest private valuation of $852 billion. Such moves are common among fast-growing Silicon Valley companies marching toward an IPO — giving early employees cash before the official listing, relieving short-term liquidity pressure, and signaling confidence to the market.
First Mover Wins Pricing Power
Beyond valuation figures, timing matters in this IPO race. The first AI giant to ring the bell will set the pricing benchmark. The AI sector lacks widely accepted public comparables — no standard P/E ratio or revenue multiple to reference. The first listed AI heavyweight essentially writes the first number on a blank sheet, and later arrivals can only anchor to that baseline.
Comparing private valuations, Anthropic leads at $965 billion, with OpenAI at $852 billion, a gap of roughly 13%. But both numbers come from private rounds; final public market pricing will depend on which company first lays out its complete financial statements for investors.