

OpenAI plans fourth quarter IPO in race to beat Anthropic to market
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. OpenAI is laying the groundwork for a public listing in the fourth quarter of this year, people familiar with the matter said, accelerating its plans as competition with rival Anthropic intensifies. The $500 billion startup is holding informal talks with Wall Street banks about a potential public listing, people familiar with the matter said, and is growing its finance team.
That includes the hire of a new chief accounting officer, Ajmere Dale, and a new corporate business finance officer, Cynthia Gaylor, who will oversee investor relations. It is expected to be a blockbuster year for stock-market debuts after a recent drought, with some on Wall Street speculating that 2026 could be the biggest year ever for IPOs. OpenAI, rival Anthropic and SpaceX are among the most closely watched tech darlings that could go public, though listing activity has also picked up for smaller companies.
Pulling off a successful public listing by the end of the year is likely to be a difficult task for the ChatGPT maker, which is still experiencing the challenges of a fast-growing startup. The company has recently made changes to leadership ranks and is contending with increasingly fierce competition to its core consumer business from Google, prompting it to declare a weekslong code red. OpenAI is also headed to trial in a case brought by co-founder Elon Musk, who is seeking up to $134 billion in damages.
An IPO could help the AI startup shore up market confidence in its finances after investors questioned how it would pay for AI infrastructure and chips deals that total hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years. “Am I excited to be a public company CEO? 0%. Am I excited for OpenAI to be a public
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