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An OpenAI IPO at $1-trillion valuation? Sam Altman said to begin work for 2026 listing
An OpenAI IPO “is the most likely path for us, given the capital needs that we'll have”, CEO Sam Altman says on a livestream on the possibility of going public.
OpenAI Inc. has started laying the groundwork for an IPO that could peg the ChatGPT creator's valuation at up to $1 trillion, setting the stage for what could be one of the biggest initial public offerings of all time.
Sam Altman, co-founder and chief executive officer, is considering filing for an OpenAI IPO as soon as the second half of 2026, Reuters reported citing three people aware of the matter. In preliminary discussions, OpenAI has looked at raising $60 billion at the low end and likely more.
During a livestream on Tuesday, Altman addressed the possibility of going public. “I think it's fair to say it is the most likely path for us, given the capital needs that we'll have,” he said.
The talks are early and plans—including the figures and timing—could change depending on business growth and market conditions. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has told some associates the company is aiming for a 2027 listing, but some advisers predict it could come even sooner, around late 2026.
“An OpenAI IPO is not our focus, so we could not possibly have set a date,” a spokesperson for the AI firm told Reuters. “We are building a durable business and advancing our mission so everyone benefits from AGI.”
An OpenAI IPO amid AI boom
The deliberations for an OpenAI IPO come even as AI drives a surge in public markets. Earlier this year, AI cloud company CoreWeave went public at a $23 billion valuation and has roughly tripled since. On Wednesday, Nvidia Corp. became the first company to achieve a market capitalisation of $5 trillion.
Preparations for an OpenAI IPO signal a new urgency inside the ChatGPT maker to tap public markets, now that a complex restructuring is complete that reduces its reliance on Microsoft.
An IPO would open the door to more efficient capital raising and enable larger acquisitions using public stock, helping to finance Sam Altman's plans to pour trillions of dollars into AI infrastructure. It would also provide bumper exits to the likes of SoftBank Group Corp. and Microsoft that now owns about 27% of the company.
With an annualised revenue run rate expected to reach about $20 billion by the year-end, losses are also mounting inside the $500-billion company, the people cited earlier told Reuters.
