The AI IPO stampede is officially on.
OpenAI Inc. on Monday announced it has submitted a confidential draft registration statement on Form S-1 to the SEC — a disclosure the company made in unusually candid fashion.
“We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it,” OpenAI said in a statement on its website.
“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,” the statement read.
The filing positions OpenAI as a potential public-market behemoth, though the company was careful to hedge on a timeline.
OpenAI’s move follows a flurry of high-profile AI and technology filings that have set Wall Street abuzz.
SpaceX and Anthropic IPOs
Rival AI company Anthropic confidentially submitted its own draft S-1 to the SEC for a proposed IPO, with analysts suggesting the company has a credible path toward a trillion-dollar valuation.
Like OpenAI, Anthropic has provided no firm timeline.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk‘s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — better known as SpaceX — filed its own S-1 in May, aiming to raise approximately $75 billion at a valuation near $1.75 trillion, which would make it the largest IPO in market history.
SpaceX reported $18.7 billion in 2025 revenue, driven largely by its Starlink satellite internet business.
Together, the three filings represent a historic convergence of AI and space-age technology hitting public markets simultaneously — and a defining test of investor appetite for moonshot bets.
Photo: bombermoon / Shutterstock
Login to comment