OpenAI confidential – OpenAI’s Monday confidential S-1 filing has pushed the company into the public-markets spotlight, setting off a race with Anthropic and overlapping with SpaceX’s upcoming IPO. Across Wall Street and the AI world, executives and analysts agree the timing is tig
For weeks, the AI giants have moved like private companies—building fast, raising money quietly, and spending ahead of a day when public investors would demand receipts. Then OpenAI made a turn into the light.
On Monday, OpenAI filed a confidential S-1, setting it on the same IPO path as Anthropic. The message is hard to miss: the two leading labs are now officially in the IPO race. SpaceX, including Elon Musk’s xAI, has a head start and is set to go public later this week.
OpenAI has left room for uncertainty in its own schedule. warning that “it may be a while” before it actually publicly lists its shares. But once filings like these exist. the market’s clock starts running anyway—especially for companies that are still racing to prove they can keep funding their momentum without running out of cash.
That tension shows up in the comments coming back from Wall Street and the broader tech world—where the same question keeps resurfacing: how these debuts land, and what that means for everyone trying to get to market next.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said his own company is still targeting 2028 for its IPO. “Agnostic of these two companies, we were planning for something in 2028, so that still remains the case,” he told CNBC. Still, Srinivas said the outcome for OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX will matter to the rest of the industry. “I certainly think there will be ripple effects if they don’t go well. like there is no sugar coating on that. ” he said.
Wedbush Securities tech analyst Dan Ives framed OpenAI’s filing as a sign that the IPO market for AI is no longer theoretical. He said OpenAI’s filing shows “the floodgates for the IPO market are officially open.” In a note. Ives said both OpenAI and Anthropic have recently raised significant amounts of capital. but they are “racing to get to market as quickly as possible to beat one another out.” He tied that urgency to the scale of funding both companies are looking to raise.
Ives also said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman “continues to face competitive pressures from competitors like Anthropic to show that growth continues to accelerate and will maintain its current aggressive pace through the next decade.”
Dan Niles. founder and portfolio manager at Niles Investment Management. described a different divide—one that puts Anthropic in a more comfortable position. He said he views Anthropic more favorably than OpenAI. adding: “I think Google wins in consumer. they have the complete stack. ” and “I think they win in AI overall. but then in corporate. you have Anthropic.” Niles said Anthropic reached profitability in Q2 and that its revenues are ramping “like nothing you’ve ever seen in history for a company of that size.”.
“I think OpenAI is stuck between the two,” he said. “So for me, those are the two winners.”
Michael Fertik. founder of Verdict Capital. took a more upbeat stance on what SpaceX’s next step could mean for the market. He said he hopes SpaceX’s IPO on Friday opens the door “to a gushing torrent of liquidity.” Fertik told CNBC: “I’m rooting for Elon Musk. I’m rooting for the IPOs. I’m rooting for the OpenAIs and Anthropics.”.
He also argued that a strong debut would help keep the U.S. ahead in the generative AI race. Fertik said many companies have relied on private markets for so long that it’s time for retail investors to share in the moment. “I hope that it does encourage companies that have been getting ready to file. to file. ” he said of SpaceX’s debut.
Gregory Allen. founder and CEO of Decision Tree Research. said the valuations attached to OpenAI. SpaceX. and Anthropic are “really extraordinary.” He told CNBC that these companies are in the ballpark of a trillion-dollar valuation. In annuity terms, he said that is akin to “an annuity that kicks out $45 billion a year every year forever.”.
Allen acknowledged the reality that companies like OpenAI are expected to lose money this year. but he said the gross margins in these businesses are “extremely favorable.” The question. he said. is timing and cash discipline: “The question is. can they time the investments correctly. to make these. hundreds of billions of dollars in capital expenditure investments and ride the wave of revenue growth properly. such that they don’t run out of cash and go bankrupt. which is the big risk here.”.
Not everyone believes the exuberance will be rewarded.
Gary Marcus. an AI researcher and professor emeritus at New York University. suggested buyers should pay attention to where the industry stands. He wrote on X. quoting a tweet about SpaceX’s valuation: “i used to be the only person saying the emperor was wearing no clothes. ” and added. “those days are over. the only people buying SpaceX and OpenAI at list price will be the stragglers who still can’t see it.”.
Nate Elliott, principal analyst at EMARKETER, a sister company to Business Insider, said OpenAI is filing to go public at a difficult time. “The company is just about to lose its strong early leads in both consumer and enterprise AI,” Elliott wrote in an email to BI.
Elliott said Anthropic has “generated incredible momentum in the enterprise market. ” and that EMARKETER forecasts that Google will overtake ChatGPT in terms of US AI users by early 2027. He also said OpenAI “doesn’t have a lot of other places to look for the enormous capital required to support its costs.” Elliott wrote that the company “has taken almost $200 billion in funding across more than a dozen private rounds.” In his view. OpenAI “certainly can’t count on its consumer business becoming self-sufficient anytime soon.”.
Even inside OpenAI’s orbit, the debate is sharper than business-model talk. Joshua Achiam, OpenAI’s chief futurist, used the moment to frame the competition as something larger than market strategy. He wrote on X: “Should a loving ensouled machine God watch over humanity?. Vote Anthropic,” and “Should humanity be entrusted with the tools of its own progress and destiny?. Vote OpenAI.”.
Achiam dismissed analysis focused on the differences between the two leading AI companies’ business models, writing: “If your lens for analyzing this is ‘consumer v enterprise business’ your ability to understand what’s going on is unfixably borked.”
The filing and the race it signals have made the market’s next question less abstract: when these companies do open their books to public investors. will the story be one of relentless acceleration—or of spending so large that timing becomes the deciding factor. With OpenAI’s S-1 now on file. and SpaceX’s IPO expected on Friday. the industry is preparing for that answer to arrive fast.
OpenAI Anthropic SpaceX IPO S-1 filing Sam Altman Elon Musk xAI Perplexity Dan Ives Verdict Capital Decision Tree Research Gary Marcus EMARKETER Joshua Achiam IPO race
So they’re going public but it might be a while?? sounds like delays to me.
OpenAI filing that S-1 just means they’re basically cashing out right? Like everyone already knew they were taking over, now the market is panicking.
I don’t get why SpaceX and xAI are even mentioned like that’s the same thing. Isn’t SpaceX already private? Feels like they’re all just racing for attention and money and then saying “it may take a while” to sound smart.
Wall Street “doubts” is code for ‘people scared they can’t keep growing’ lol. But also didn’t they file confidentially first? if it’s confidential why does everyone act like they have the whole plan. I swear these IPO timelines change every week—same as everything else lately.