OpenAI has filed confidentially to go public on the US stock market, according to a company blogpost published on Monday. The artificial intelligence giant’s debut on Wall Street is expected to be one of the most highly valued listings in market history, with a valuation of more than $850bn.
“We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it,” the company’s post reads. “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. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.” An S-1 is an investor prospectus submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in advance of an initial public offering.
OpenAI’s chief rival, Anthropic, which makes the Claude chatbot, announced last week that it was also filing to go public. OpenAI’s approaching IPO marks the culmination of a meteoric rise since its founding as a non-profit research lab in 2015, led by CEO Sam Altman. After working on generative AI in beta, the company publicly released ChatGPT in 2022 and converted to a for-profit structure.
The chatbot rapidly accrued hundreds of millions of users, changing the way the world works from entertainment to healthcare to education. However, OpenAI has failed to find another success on the same level, despite attempts to expand into devices, a video generation app, and partnerships with Disney. The company closed a funding round of $122bn in March, pegging its value at about $852bn, even after showing difficulty turning a profit and missing key revenue targets.
The IPO filing comes after OpenAI’s win in a lawsuit brought by Elon Musk over claims that the company illegally converted from a non-profit to a for-profit. A jury ruled that the case fell outside the statute of limitations. OpenAI still faces other legal challenges, including lawsuits alleging ChatGPT has exacerbated mental health crises and provoked violent acts.
