OpenAI confidentially files for IPO, prepping Wall Street for AI debut

OpenAI has confidentially filed for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission, joining the party a week after Anthropic did the same and days before Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to hit the public market.

The artificial intelligence company, which is valued at more than $850 billion, has been gearing up to go public as soon as the fourth quarter of this year. A confidential filing allows the company to submit its financials to regulators for review before they’re made available to the public and prospective investors.

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told CNBC in April that it’s “good hygiene” for a business of OpenAI’s size to “look and feel and act” like a public company, but she wouldn’t comment on a specific IPO timeline. OpenAI said Monday it hasn’t decided on timing.

Here’s the entirety of OpenAI’s post:

OpenAI also plans to facilitate a tender offer that will allow employees to sell shares at the latest valuation, which was $852 billion post-money, and alleviate some near-term pressure for liquidity, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked not to be named because the details are private.

The company has been working with banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on the filing, as CNBC previously reported. They’re the two firms listed at the top of SpaceX’s filing.

OpenAI rocketed into the mainstream following the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022, and has since ballooned into one of the most valuable private companies in the world. ChatGPT now supports more than 900 million weekly active users, but OpenAI faces increasingly stiff competition from rivals like Anthropic, Google and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which merged with xAI earlier this year.

SpaceX kicked off a roadshow last week. OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are all named as some of SpaceX’s “key competitors” in AI, according to the filing.

A week ago Anthropic announced its confidential IPO filing. Shortly before that, the company closed a funding round at a $965 billion valuation, topping OpenAI, which was valued at $852 billion in late March.

Depending on how SpaceX’s offering is received, Anthropic and OpenAI could be rushing to beat each other out due to the massive amount of capital they’re trying to raise.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be under pressure to make his case to investors, particularly around the company’s financials. OpenAI has raised more than $180 billion in funding, and it is still burning through cash as it works to secure compute and build…