OpenAI files for IPO at $852bn as AI giants rush to Wall Street

OpenAI confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission on 8 June, the company said Monday, joining Anthropic and SpaceX in a rush of AI companies to the public markets that has no precedent in scale or speed.

OpenAI disclosed the filing in a blog post after concluding it would leak. The three firms together could raise roughly $280 billion at combined valuations above $3.6 trillion, according to Bloomberg. Anthropic filed confidentially on 1 June at about $965 billion. SpaceX is pricing its $75 billion IPO this week at $135 per share, the largest stock offering on record, for a valuation of roughly $1.77 trillion.

OpenAI was valued at $852 billion in its most recent funding round, in March. Reuters reported the company is targeting a valuation of up to $1 trillion when it lists, possibly as early as September.

“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,” OpenAI said.

Chief financial officer Sarah Friar will run the listing. Chief executive Sam Altman is managing parallel pressure from the SEC and a lawsuit brought by the state of Florida. The Trump administration had also explored taking a government stake in the company, according to CNBC.

The market strain

The three IPOs together represent a pipeline three times the size of the entire US IPO market in 2021, which was the busiest year on record. They hit as the S&P 500 shed $1.8 trillion in a single session on 5 June, pushed lower by Iran-war volatility and a hawkish Federal Reserve under new Chair Kevin Warsh.

“These behemoth IPOs will rapidly take up both the market share of benchmarks and the mindshare of retail investors,” Max Gokhman, senior vice president at Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions, told Bloomberg.

Megacap technology IPOs have a poor first-year record. Of the 30 largest tracked by Bloomberg and Truist, the average decline from the offer price was 55 per cent. Fund managers argue the current wave is different: the systemic scale of AI and the depth of institutional demand mean the historical pattern may not hold.

S&P Dow Jones Indices this month rejected proposals to fast-track S&P 500 eligibility for mega-cap listings. Under current rules, a company must wait at least a year after going public before joining the benchmark. The AI trio will not immediately benefit from passive index-tracking flows.

A reshuffled pecking order

Anthropic’s $65 billion Series H in May — led by Altimeter, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia — pushed its post-money valuation to $965 billion, above OpenAI’s $852 billion. That gap creates a pricing comp that could constrain how OpenAI’s bankers pitch the offering.

“I have never been asked more about an IPO than SpaceX from our retail clients and advisers,” said Matt Stucky, chief portfolio manager of equities at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management. “That’s interesting, but at the same time it’s also a little concerning just from a risk management perspective.”

Retail demand cuts both ways. MarketWatch reported that Elon Musk needs retail investors to absorb roughly $23 billion of SpaceX shares, and some wealth managers are uneasy about concentration risk as the AI wave builds.

Perplexity chief executive Aravind Srinivas told CNBC on 9 June that his company plans to go public in 2028 regardless of how Anthropic and OpenAI perform, calling the listings “ongoing market validation” for AI. The equity-raising is not limited to IPOs: Alphabet completed an $80 billion offering in May, and Oracle announced a $40 billion capital plan on 10 June.

OpenAI’s filing includes no share count or price range. Timing remains open. But with Anthropic already under SEC review and SpaceX set to begin trading, the window for the largest technology listing in history is real.