Key Takeaways
- OpenAI has already filed. It confirmed a confidential draft S-1 with the SEC on June 8, 2026, after submitting the paperwork in late May.
- The confidential filing is not the same as a public listing. It buys OpenAI the option to go public after SEC review, with no fixed date attached.
- By late June 2026, reporting from the New York Times and Reuters placed the actual debut as late as 2027, as advisers warned that current markets may not support the price OpenAI wants.
- The company is holding out for a valuation of up to $1 trillion. CEO Sam Altman has rejected any cut to that target.
- OpenAI was last valued at roughly $852 billion in its March 2026 round, which raised about $122 billion.
- Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead the deal, with JPMorgan also involved.
- OpenAI runs at about $2 billion in monthly revenue but remains loss-making, with a projected $14 billion loss in 2026 and breakeven not expected until around 2030.
- The next real milestone is a public S-1 on EDGAR, which must appear at least 15 days before any roadshow.
OpenAI vs Anthropic IPO race – artistic impression. Image credit: Alius Noreika / AI
OpenAI has already taken the first formal step. On June 8, 2026, the company confirmed it had confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, having sent the paperwork in late May. It announced the move itself in a short blog post, writing that it expected the filing to leak and was getting ahead of the story. So the question is no longer whether OpenAI will file. It has. The open question is when the private draft becomes a public offering that ordinary investors can buy into.
On that, the timeline has stretched. Through the spring, reporting pointed to a debut as early as the fourth quarter of 2026. By late June, the New York Times and Reuters reported that OpenAI was leaning toward holding off until 2027, after bankers cautioned that recent volatility in tech stocks, including SpaceX’s swings after its record listing, could dampen retail appetite. The choice in front of Altman is blunt: list sooner in 2026 at a lower number, or wait into 2027 for a shot at the trillion-dollar figure he wants. He has treated any reduction in that target as off the table.
What a confidential filing actually means
A confidential draft registration lets a company begin SEC review in private, sharing detailed financials with the regulator before exposing revenue, margins, and risk factors to the public and to rivals. The full prospectus surfaces later. SEC guidance requires an issuer running an IPO to publicly file the registration statement, the original nonpublic draft, and all amendments at least 15 days before it holds a roadshow. That public S-1 is the document to watch, because it carries the first audited financials and the final terms.
The timing of OpenAI’s filing was not accidental. It came after a California jury, on May 18, dismissed Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the company on statute-of-limitations grounds, clearing a legal overhang that had hung over the process. Musk has signaled an appeal, but absent a new court order, the verdict removes the immediate obstacle.
The valuation standoff driving the delay
OpenAI’s last private mark was roughly $852 billion, set in its March 2026 round that pulled in about $122 billion from backers including Microsoft, SoftBank, Nvidia, and Amazon. Pushing to a $1 trillion public debut means a sizeable leap in a short window. Advisers presented two routes: stabilize the financials and wait for 2027 at the higher price, or accept a smaller valuation to move faster. The internal split is between time-to-market and price, and for now the price is winning.
A separate pressure has entered the picture. The Trump administration asked OpenAI to stagger the release of its next model, GPT-5.6, over security concerns, with the company telling staff that access during a limited preview would be approved customer by customer. Government interest in controlling how frontier models ship adds another variable to an already crowded calendar.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Confidential S-1 announced | June 8, 2026 (submitted late May) |
| Target valuation | Up to $1 trillion |
| Last private valuation | ~$852 billion (March 2026) |
| Lead underwriters | Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan |
| Monthly revenue | ~$2 billion (~$24 billion run rate) |
| 2025 revenue | ~$13.1 billion |
| Projected 2026 loss | ~$14 billion |
| Expected breakeven | ~2030 |
| Reported listing window | Late 2026 or 2027 |
The financials underneath the wait
OpenAI generates about $2 billion a month, with enterprise now more than 40% of revenue and on a path toward parity with consumer by year-end. Full-year 2025 revenue landed near $13.1 billion. The catch is cost. The company expects roughly $14 billion in losses in 2026 against enormous infrastructure commitments, and it has tied its future to vast data-center spending. That spending is the reason public-market investors will read the path to profitability closely once audited numbers appear, and it is part of why OpenAI is racing to control its own compute rather than rent it.
Ownership will also shape demand. Microsoft holds roughly 27% after investments dating to 2019, plus model and Azure rights running through 2032, making it the largest disclosed outside shareholder and the biggest dilution factor for new buyers. The OpenAI Foundation holds about 26%, with employees and other investors splitting the rest.
OpenAI in a crowded IPO field
OpenAI is filing into the busiest stretch of AI listings yet. Anthropic filed confidentially on June 1, 2026 at a reported $965 billion valuation, edging ahead of OpenAI in the race to public markets and, by several measures, in revenue. SpaceX went public on June 12 and briefly topped a $2 trillion market cap. That clustering matters: how investors price audited frontier-AI financials from Anthropic first may set the anchor OpenAI is measured against. For a fuller read on where each lab stands, see our breakdown of which AI lab leads in 2026.
So when does it happen?
The honest answer is that OpenAI controls the timing and has not committed to it. The confidential filing gives the company a loaded option it can exercise when markets and its own numbers line up. Watch for a public S-1 on the SEC’s EDGAR system, a change in OpenAI’s filing status, or an official update on a listing date. Until one of those appears, a 2026 debut remains possible but a 2027 listing looks increasingly likely, and everything before that is preparation. This is informational reporting, not investment advice; OpenAI shares are not available on any public exchange today.
If you are interested in this topic, we suggest you check our articles:
- xAI vs OpenAI vs Anthropic: Which AI Lab Wins in 2026?
- OpenAI’s Infrastructure Push: Becoming Its Own Cloud Provider
- Does OpenAI Want Over 300,000 AI Consultants?
- AI Models and Their Features: ChatGPT vs Grok vs Claude
- How Much Electrical Power Does AI Require?
Sources: Bloomberg, Investing.com, Yahoo Finance, Investing.com Analysis
Written by Alius Noreika
