OpenAI is preparing to file confidentially for an initial public offering within days and is targeting a public listing as early as September, according to the Wall Street Journal. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are working on the draft prospectus.
The timing is pointed. The filing comes one day after Elon Musk lost his lawsuit against OpenAI, removing the legal cloud that had hung over the company's corporate structure and Sam Altman's leadership. With the courtroom behind him, Altman is moving fast.
OpenAI raised $122 billion earlier this year in what was likely Silicon Valley's largest-ever private funding round. The company is generating $25 billion in annualised revenue. It does not expect to reach profitability until 2030.
The IPO queue is extraordinary
OpenAI is not filing into a vacuum. SpaceX's public S-1 is expected to land on the SEC's EDGAR database as early as this week, with a roadshow beginning around June 4 and a targeted first day of trading on June 12. The company is seeking to raise $75 billion at a valuation of $1.75 trillion, which would make it the largest IPO in history by a factor of more than two.
Anthropic, the Claude maker, is targeting a listing as early as October. The Financial Times reported the company is looking to raise $30 billion at a $900 billion valuation.
Anthropic led global large language model revenue share in the first quarter of 2026 with 31.4%, narrowly ahead of OpenAI at 29%, according to Counterpoint Research.
Based on assumed free floats, the combined fundraising from SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic could approach $200 billion, a sum that has no modern parallel in public markets.
Musk versus Altman, round two
The courtroom drama may be over but the competitive dynamic is about to play out on a far bigger stage. Musk's SpaceX, which absorbed xAI in an all-stock merger in February, will be asking public investors to price a cash-printing satellite network alongside an AI division that burned $14 billion in 2025. The combined entity posted a net loss of $4.94 billion last year.
Altman's OpenAI will need to explain how a company spending $57 billion a year on infrastructure by 2027 can justify a $1 trillion valuation when profitability is four years away. Anthropic's pitch is different again: enterprise-heavy, leaner, and projecting breakeven by 2028, two years ahead of OpenAI.
The three founders who have defined the AI era, and spent much of the past two years in public conflict with one another, will be competing for the same pool of institutional and retail capital within months.
Can the market absorb this?
Nasdaq has implemented a Fast Entry rule effective May 1 that allows mega-cap IPOs to be added to the Nasdaq-100 within 15 trading days if they rank among the 40 largest components by market cap. The S&P is considering fast-tracking mega-cap listings into the S&P 500 within six months, waiving both the 12-month seasoning period and profitability requirements. If all three qualify, index funds become forced buyers within weeks, creating structural demand that has no historical precedent.
Related reading
- OpenAI publishes open-source teen safety tools for developers building AI apps
- OpenAI strengthens Sora video safety and consent controls
- Anthropic's Claude prompts claims of consciousness
The risk is concentration. Retail investors hungry for pure-play AI exposure have had few options beyond Nvidia and CoreWeave. SpaceX is planning a 30% retail allocation, roughly three times the standard for an offering of this size. OpenAI's CFO has described retail participation as good hygiene for a company of its scale.
The question is whether public markets can absorb three offerings of this magnitude in a single quarter without repricing the broader AI trade. The last time anything comparable happened was the dot-com era, and the comparison is one that bulls and bears will both be reaching for.
