The artificial intelligence (AI) and aerospace sectors are bracing for what could be the largest public market debuts in history. OpenAI is preparing to confidentially file a draft of its initial public offering (IPO) prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as soon as Friday, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
The news arrives just as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which recently merged with xAI, is set to publicly disclose its own IPO paperwork ahead of a potential June offering.
The concurrent public listings set up a high-stakes Wall Street showdown between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and billionaire Elon Musk, whose fierce rivalry recently culminated in a high-profile federal lawsuit that was rejected this week.
OpenAI, currently valued at more than $850 billion by private investors, is working with major financial institutions including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. While sources indicate the company is aiming for a potential public debut as early as September, OpenAI plans remain fluid.
“As part of normal governance, we regularly evaluate a range of strategic options,” an OpenAI representative said in a statement. “Our focus remains on execution.”
OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar previously noted that acting like a public company is “good hygiene” for an organization of its size, though internal reports suggest she has cautioned leadership that the company may need more time before debuting.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is expected to raise a record-breaking sum following a $1.25 trillion valuation in February. Goldman Sachs is poised to take the lead left position on the SpaceX prospectus, followed by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase.
OpenAI’s push toward the public markets cleared a major hurdle on Monday. A federal jury in Oakland, Calif., ruled that Musk had waited too long to sue OpenAI, Altman, and President Greg Brockman over allegations that the company abandoned its original nonprofit mission. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers immediately adopted the verdict, dismissing the claims. Musk dismissed the ruling as a “calendar technicality” on his social media platform, X, and intends to appeal.
Despite the legal victory, OpenAI faces mounting operational pressure. The company has raised over $180 billion but continues to burn through cash at a historic pace to meet massive data-center and computing commitments. Further, OpenAI recently missed multiple internal revenue and user targets due to fierce competition from Google and Anthropic.
Adding to Altman’s challenges is Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot. Founded by former OpenAI executives including Dario Amodei, Anthropic is winning significant market share in the enterprise and AI coding sectors.
Anthropic announced in April that it had topped $30 billion in annualized revenue, growing faster than OpenAI in recent months. The company is currently in talks with investors to raise capital at a $900 billion valuation — a figure that would slide it ahead of OpenAI. In a further twist to the industry rivalry, Musk recently struck a deal allowing Anthropic to utilize computing power at his Tennessee data center.
The current battle for market supremacy traces back over a decade. OpenAI originally launched as a nonprofit research lab backed by early financial contributions from Musk. As the immense cost of frontier AI development became clear, commercial arms were established to raise billions in necessary venture capital.
