Inside the Race to Take OpenAI Public: The $1 Trillion Valuation, Internal Clashes, and a 'Horse Race' Among Rivals

CEO Sam Altman communicated this ambition directly to employees. In a Slack message, he said he expects the company to go public "within the next year," though he acknowledged that "various factors could lead to it being delayed" . Some reports have pointed to a September 2026 listing as a target date, but OpenAI itself has not confirmed this, and the timeline remains highly fluid .

Altman vs. Friar: The Internal Clash Over Timing

The most significant threat to a 2026 IPO is not a competitor or a regulator—it's an internal leadership clash. According to multiple reports, CFO Sarah Friar has privately told colleagues that the company is not ready to go public this year and has advocated for delaying the offering until 2027 .

Friar's concerns are concrete. She has flagged two major risks: whether OpenAI can meet the rigorous reporting standards required of a public company, and whether its revenue trajectory is strong enough to justify the valuation in the face of enormous spending commitments . At the center of the dispute is Altman's proposed five-year, $600 billion infrastructure spending plan, which Friar views as an unsustainable cash-burn risk .

This tension has real-world consequences. Morningstar estimates that OpenAI has $1.15 trillion in infrastructure obligations, mostly fixed-cost compute contracts, that public market investors will need to see converted into free cash flow . The firm has concluded that a realistic IPO window has likely shifted from Q4 2026 to mid-to-late 2027 because of the time required to demonstrate clean execution against those obligations .

The company has also missed multiple revenue targets, a fact that was reported by the Wall Street Journal, adding to the internal financial scrutiny .

The Company's Cautious Public Stance

Despite Altman's optimism, the company's official public messaging is far more measured. In response to news of the confidential filing, OpenAI stated that the timing is "undecided" and that "it may be a while" before the company lists on an exchange, noting that no committed listing date has been set . This cautious language appears to reflect the CFO's influence and the organizational realities of preparing for a public offering. As CFO Friar told CNBC in April, it is "good hygiene" for a company of OpenAI's magnitude to "look, feel, and" operate like a publicly traded entity, a process that is still underway .

A Tender Offer to Relieve Employee Pressure

To ease near-term liquidity pressure on employees while the IPO timeline remains uncertain, OpenAI is planning a new tender offer that will allow current and former employees to sell shares at the $852 billion valuation associated with the S-1 filing . The offer is reportedly priced around $687 per share .

This follows a massive $6.6 billion secondary offering in October 2025, in which over 600 employees participated. More than 75 of them cashed out the maximum permitted amount of $30 million each at a valuation of roughly $400–$500 billion . That sale, led by investors including SoftBank and Thrive Capital, made OpenAI the world's most valuable private company at the time .

The Lead Underwriters and a $7 Billion Horse Race

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are the confirmed lead underwriters for the IPO, with JPMorgan Chase also on the deal . Citi has been in discussions to join the syndicate, and other banks are expected to be added before the group is finalized .

An intense, unresolved competition is playing out behind the scenes for the prestigious "lead left" position, the top bookrunner role that controls allocation and sets the pricing dynamics. Both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are vying for this title on OpenAI and Anthropic's IPOs simultaneously . Goldman Sachs has already secured the lead-left role for SpaceX's IPO, giving it an early advantage in the 2026 mega-deal sweepstakes . Prediction markets reflect the competitive uncertainty: Kalshi gives Goldman a 73% likelihood of winning the lead-left on OpenAI, while PolyMarket places Anthropic's odds at even between the two banks .

The Competitive Pressure: A Cluster of Trillion-Dollar AI IPOs

OpenAI's IPO is not happening in isolation. Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, filed confidentially for its own IPO just before OpenAI, also with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as lead underwriters . SpaceX is also expected to debut publicly in the same window .

The three companies are racing for the same pool of institutional investor capital in a compressed time frame, creating what analysts describe as a "horse race" for both underwriter mandates and investor demand . The trio of IPOs collectively represents more than $7 billion in potential underwriting fees, a concentration of mega-cap tech offerings not seen since the 2021 SPAC boom .

This concentration raises broader market concerns. Analysts warn that public markets may struggle to absorb multiple trillion-dollar AI listings in rapid succession, especially since OpenAI's path to profitability is still unclear and its capital expenditure requirements are massive .

Other Legal and Structural Headwinds

Beyond the financial and competitive pressures, OpenAI is navigating significant structural challenges. The company recently completed a conversion from a nonprofit-controlled entity to a for-profit public benefit corporation, a prerequisite for the IPO, but the organizational overhaul is still in progress . Elon Musk, a co-founder, has also sued to block the restructuring, and the legal battle is ongoing .