OpenAI IPO in 2026 is off the table, Altman says
Sam Altman said OpenAI will not go public in 2026 as the company focuses on AI safety, while rivals back a slower pace for model advances.
By Maya Okafor · Markets Writer
· 3 min read
OpenAI’s IPO in 2026 is off the table, CEO Sam Altman said, leaving the artificial intelligence company private for at least the rest of the year. In an interview with Fortune, Altman said OpenAI does not feel pressure to list now as it works through AI safety concerns, a decision that sets no firm date for a future offering.
“I would say not 2026,” Altman said when asked whether the company would wait until 2027. He cited the work needed on safety, alignment and cooperation between the AI industry and governments, according to Fortune and Reuters.
An initial public offering, or IPO, is the process through which a private company first sells shares on a public stock exchange. Altman said OpenAI would go public when both its business and the wider social moment around the technology were ready, rather than committing to a 2027 timetable.
When could OpenAI go public after ruling out 2026?
OpenAI has not announced a target date. The New York Times reported in June, citing three people involved in internal deliberations, that the company was leaning toward postponing an offering until the following year. Separately, CNBC reported that OpenAI CFO Sara Friar had told employees in August that a 2027 IPO, or possibly an earlier one if business conditions continued to improve, was likely.
Altman’s latest comments are more limited: they rule out 2026. They do not establish that a listing will occur in 2027.
What the AI leaders are proposing
The IPO decision arrived alongside an unusual show of public agreement among competing AI leaders. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote that companies should slow the rate at which they expand the capabilities of their most advanced models. His proposal calls for pacing those gains, rather than stopping model training or technical progress.
According to CNBC, Amodei’s three-part framework begins with independent safety evaluators receiving employee-level access to verify company practices and report incidents. It then calls for common standards among leading AI companies in democratic countries, followed by coordination between democratic and authoritarian governments.
Altman responded on X that he agreed with Amodei about the need to “pace the frontier,” adding that it had been a major topic in recent OpenAI discussions, Reuters reported. Elon Musk, who runs xAI, also backed Amodei’s view, writing on social media that “Dario is right,” according to Politico.
Those endorsements are not a binding industry agreement. Reuters reported that Altman suggested OpenAI and other leading AI companies might be close to announcing a joint arrangement to slow development and address safety risks, but no completed pact has been announced.
Anthropic’s position is separate from OpenAI’s IPO decision. Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Anthropic was expected to begin marketing an IPO no earlier than mid-October. Anthropic has not announced a public listing date.
This story draws on original reporting from CNBC.
