OpenAI IPO Progress: Already Filed But ‘Not Ready to Go Public.’ Can OpenAI Go Public in 2026? Which OpenAI Concept Stocks Will Be Affected?

The primary factor behind OpenAI's desire to accelerate its IPO pace is the competition it faces from two major rivals: Anthropic and SpaceX. Strictly speaking, SpaceX is not a competitor in the same field as OpenAI, but in the IPO market, the reality is that capital flows to whoever has the most promise. If liquidity is siphoned off by SpaceX's $1.75 trillion valuation IPO, the U.S. IPO market will face a liquidity black hole, and OpenAI's secondary market debut is destined to break its offer price.

Analysis suggests that OpenAI's filing at this time is signaling to public market investors that OpenAI is another high-quality target in this year's IPO market besides SpaceX. OpenAI wants investors not to bet everything on the SpaceX IPO.

The competition between OpenAI and Anthropic is relatively more level, as both are surviving in the cracks of SpaceX's "capital siphon." While they have similar valuation scales and core businesses focused on large AI models, OpenAI may still lose out to Anthropic.

Currently, Anthropic has secured a $900 billion valuation in its latest funding round, exceeding the $852 billion valuation recorded in OpenAI's last round. The situation on secondary market trading platforms is even more pronounced: according to a Business Insider report in April, Anthropic's valuation on platforms like Forge Global has surged to $1 trillion, surpassing OpenAI's secondary market valuation during the same period.

In terms of revenue growth, although OpenAI currently leads, Anthropic is catching up and narrowing the gap. OpenAI's Q1 revenue this year was approximately $5.7 billion, only about $1 billion more than Anthropic's. Anthropic's recent annualized revenue has already surpassed the $25 billion figure disclosed by OpenAI in February, reaching nearly $45 billion. Anthropic expects its single-quarter revenue for Q2 to exceed $11 billion and achieve an operating profit of about $600 million, contrasting with OpenAI's -122% operating margin. OpenAI is choosing to list early not only to avoid SpaceX draining market liquidity but also to seize a window of opportunity and prevent a valuation decline as Anthropic catches up.

According to reports from Business Insider, OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar is concerned about the timing of the IPO. The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Friar has expressed reservations in recent months about plans for OpenAI to go public by the end of this year. According to The Information, Friar has been excluded from several key meetings and previously stated she does not believe the company will be ready for an IPO by 2026, highlighting internal divisions and power struggles among executives regarding the listing.

Furthermore, the unhealthy financial data mentioned above is also a factor hindering OpenAI's smooth path to an IPO. Although the first-quarter revenue of $5.7 billion is a solid performance for OpenAI, the market places more weight on the -122% operating margin. This implies that OpenAI remains a company unable to survive without external capital injections, a point that could lead the market to overlook its achievements and instead worry about the company's commercialization progress.

Since the beginning of this year, all tech giants have been pouring capital into AI infrastructure spending, but the market is increasingly focused on return on investment. It no longer assumes that the company spending the most holds the advantage in seizing the lead in the AI race. Under these circumstances, OpenAI's burn rate will face the harshest criticism from the public markets. Compared to Anthropic, which has already achieved operating profitability, the likelihood of the market choosing Anthropic over these two similar assets could rise, further squeezing OpenAI's IPO prospects. OpenAI's failure to meet user growth targets suggests that future revenue growth is not guaranteed, further exacerbating market anxiety.

OpenAI's Major Shareholders

During OpenAI's restructuring into a for-profit company, although its agreement with Microsoft (MSFT) has undergone multiple rounds of adjustments, Microsoft remains OpenAI's largest external shareholder to date. In April this year, a cap table allegedly from OpenAI circulated online. According to reports from the Celebrity Net Worth website, the leak of this document occurred almost simultaneously with the exposure of OpenAI's financing news and "appears to be authentic." The document shows that OpenAI's top five shareholders are: Microsoft (26.79%), the OpenAI Foundation (25.8%), SoftBank (11.66%), and Amazon (AMZN) (4.66%) and NVIDIA (NVDA) (3.47%). The company's current and former employees collectively hold approximately 20% of the shares.

According to this document, Microsoft's initial $13 billion investment in OpenAI has grown to a value of $228.3 billion, while SoftBank's total $64 billion investment is currently worth approximately $99.3 billion. This list reveals the shareholders who would suffer the most if OpenAI fails to go public: Japan-listed SoftBank, U.S.-listed Microsoft, and Oracle (ORCL) , Amazon, and NVIDIA.

Among these five companies, the one most affected is likely to be SoftBank. While Microsoft holds the largest stake, its cost basis is lower; even if the deal collapses, it would only see $13 billion go down the drain. SoftBank is different; it has not only invested over $60 billion, but this massive sum was also raised by liquidating its assets. To fund its investment in OpenAI, SoftBank even cleared its holdings in NVIDIA and pledged a portion of its Arm equity. Arm is currently the most core source of profit and the pillar of market value for the SoftBank Group. Should OpenAI fail to go public, or if its valuation drops significantly after an IPO, and SoftBank is unable to repay its collateralized loans on time, it could trigger forced liquidations by banks. The worst-case scenario would be the loss of its core asset—its equity in Arm.

Microsoft is currently undergoing a gradual "decoupling" from OpenAI. Microsoft is no longer OpenAI's exclusive cloud computing provider and has agreed to waive its original "predatory clause" of "priority distribution of 75% of profits" after OpenAI's restructuring; therefore, the current impact is limited. However, growth for Microsoft's cloud business, Azure, could slow down, as its leading growth rate over the past few years was driven by OpenAI's massive computing demand. At that point, the cloud services industry could face a reshuffling.

While Amazon also holds a significant stake in OpenAI, it is simultaneously the largest external shareholder in Anthropic. As Anthropic's valuation exceeds $900 billion, the paper gains from Amazon's investment in Anthropic have significantly exceeded potential losses from a possible OpenAI IPO failure. Furthermore, Amazon AWS is poised to launch a counter-offensive against Microsoft Azure.

Although NVIDIA also invested in OpenAI, it was primarily in the form of priority supply rights for its most advanced GPU chips. Therefore, OpenAI's IPO status has a less significant impact on NVIDIA than on the other companies.

OpenAI's Key Partner: Apple

Apple (AAPL) is affected because Apple Intelligence is deeply integrated with ChatGPT. According to information on OpenAI's official website, Apple's voice assistant Siri can leverage the professional capabilities of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Apple seeks user consent before sending any questions to ChatGPT, and Siri then presents the answer directly, effectively allowing Siri to interoperate with ChatGPT. If OpenAI's IPO is unsuccessful and its business is hit, the Apple Intelligence experience will decline accordingly. However, Apple has already reached an agreement with Google regarding AI, which means Apple Intelligence will not face a devastating blow.

This content was translated using AI and reviewed for clarity. It is for informational purposes only.