OpenAI files for IPO

OpenAI announced Monday afternoon that it has filed to offer its stock on public markets, just a week after its chief rival, Anthropic did the same.

“We recently submitted a confidential S-1,” the ChatGPT maker said in a post on X, referring to the formal name of the filing for an initial public offering. “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 artificial intelligence startup added that “it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”

In March, OpenAI’s valuation soared to $852 billion after it raised a fresh $122 billion in cash to fuel its ever-expanding ambitions in AI. That cash is being used to develop advanced AI models, but also the extensive physical data center infrastructure and cloud computing capacity required to run those systems.

On June 1, OpenAI’s primary rival Anthropic also filed for a public stock offering. That startup was worth $952 billion in its most recent funding round.

Regardless when OpenAI and Anthropic decide to begin trading this year, they will be the second and third mega IPOs to follow SpaceX’s trillion-dollar offering, which is set for Friday. Elon Musk’s rocket company is also heavily involved in artificial intelligence, through its xAI business.

OpenAI became a household name because of ChatGPT. Launched in late 2022, the app that connects users to the company’s AI models for free, has gained hundreds of millions of downloads since.

However, OpenAI in recent years has come under fire. Just last month, the company emerged from a contentious legal battle with Elon Musk, who sued the company as it tried to convert out of being a non-profit.

The company has also faced numerous claims that ChatGPT is to blame for harm to some of its youngest users. The company has denied that, saying in response to one recent lawsuit that it was not to blame.

At the same time, company executives have acknowledged that it needs to reduce the number of “side quests” and not “miss this moment.”

The company has reportedly missed “multiple internal revenue and user targets” after fierce competition from Anthropic and Google, whose Gemini AI model is increasingly popular.

Similar to Musk’s SpaceX, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar recently said that because “AI needs to garner trust in everything that we do,” the company plans to reserve a slice of its eventual stock offering for the average retail trader or investor.

“Everybody wants to own part of a rocket company — I hope everyone wants to own part of ChatGPT,” Friar told CNBC. “It helps when you’re a consumer brand.”

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