OpenAI prepares for potential September IPO

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, the artificial intelligence company OpenAI is preparing to move forward with plans for an initial public offering. Chief executive Sam Altman reportedly hopes that the company will be ready to go public by September. In preparation for the potential public debut, the ChatGPT maker has been working with investment bankers Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. As part of this process, OpenAI may file its IPO paperwork confidentially with regulators within days or weeks. A confidential filing is a process where a company submits IPO paperwork to regulators privately before making it public. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding its public offering plans.

The decision to proceed with the public offering comes a day after the resolution of a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI who now runs competing ventures. The legal challenge “threatened OpenAI’s structure, leadership, and finances” before it was resolved. Now that Musk “failed to skewer OpenAI, the competitor he co-founded, through the heart with a lawsuit,” the conflict between Musk and Altman is expected to transition from the courtroom into the financial markets, turning a legal battle into a financial rivalry.

This transition coincides with expected public market activity from Musk’s aerospace company, SpaceX. According to reports, SpaceX IPO filings are expected to appear as soon as Wednesday. SpaceX has emerged as a competitor to OpenAI after it consumed xAI, the artificial intelligence model maker. The dual public market paths of OpenAI and SpaceX will test which company can attract greater investor demand, shifting their rivalry into a new financial phase.

Why it matters

The resolution of the legal battle clears the path for OpenAI to pursue public markets, shifting the rivalry with Elon Musk from the courtroom to the stock exchange.