Anthropic vs. OpenAI: First AI Large Model IPO, Who Has More Investment Value? Will SpaceX IPO Magnify Anthropic Investment Risk?

OpenAI has not yet followed suit in filing. According to reports from media outlets such as The Information, OpenAI is prepared to confidentially submit its draft IPO registration to the SEC. However, CEO Sam Altman stated in an all-hands meeting that filing for an IPO and being truly ready to go public are two different things, and the company will not rush to the public market before conditions are mature. The market originally predicted that OpenAI would file for an IPO ahead of Anthropic.

Does Anthropic gain a greater advantage by being the first to move? The benefits are unquestionable, especially against the backdrop of SpaceX's upcoming listing in June. With a target IPO valuation of $2 trillion, the company is expected to "drain" market liquidity upon its debut. Based on target valuation, SpaceX could soon rank among the seven most valuable public companies in the U.S. Reuters reported that large mutual funds and passive index funds have begun allocating more cash and are preparing to sell off some existing large-cap stocks to reserve funds for upcoming blockbuster IPOs. For Anthropic and OpenAI, whoever lists first will be able to carve up the remaining positions held by institutional and retail investors.

Additionally, the first company to go public can become the first AI large-model unicorn in the public market, enjoying the premium brought by scarcity. It can directly access low-cost financing from global markets, breaking its sole reliance on investments from major shareholders like Amazon and Google while securing ample cash flow, which also eases the pressure of massive capital expenditures for AI data center infrastructure. Post-listing, its highly liquid stock can also serve as capital for acquiring other companies, helping to accelerate the company's pace of expansion.

Even if Anthropic's IPO lags behind OpenAI's, the former still has a strong chance of coming out on top. According to Bloomberg reports in late May, Anthropic's current funding round reached $65 billion, with its valuation rising to $965 billion, officially surpassing OpenAI. Moreover, Anthropic's annualized revenue has already reached $47 billion and is expected to exceed $50 billion by the end of June. Meanwhile, OpenAI's annualized revenue has just surpassed $30 billion.

However, there is a diametrically opposite view that suggests listing later also has its advantages. Harrison Rolfes, a senior analyst at PitchBook, stated that if Anthropic lists first, it will bear all disclosure risks before OpenAI. OpenAI can now observe for free how institutional investors respond to audited frontier AI financial data before deciding on its own pricing.

Judging by the reaction in the secondary market, Anthropic is clearly the preferred AI large-model target for retail investors. As early as April this year, Anthropic's valuation in the private secondary market surpassed $1 trillion, while OpenAI's was only $880 billion; the implied valuation of Anthropic's secondary shares even reached $1.15 trillion, while demand for OpenAI in the secondary market saw a significant decline.

While retail investors have already voted with their feet, this does not mean Anthropic holds a lopsided advantage. Although Anthropic's recent growth has been more rapid, OpenAI remains the undisputed industry leader.

In the consumer market, based on early 2026 data, OpenAI's ChatGPT has surpassed 900 million weekly active users (WAU) and has over 50 million individual paid subscribers. Even if growth falters, it still possesses a massive user base moat, providing a traffic advantage that Anthropic cannot match. In terms of the ecosystem, OpenAI and Microsoft (MSFT) are deeply integrated; ChatGPT leverages Azure and Office as traffic entry points, while Microsoft provides exclusive computing power for OpenAI. In terms of product lines, OpenAI has a broader layout, featuring a full-stack product line including the GPT-4o flagship model, the Sora video generation model, and the o1 reasoning model.

Anthropic's primary advantage is its growth rate, which is why the market is backing it. The company's profitability timeline is also notable; according to its disclosures, it is set to record $10.9 billion in revenue in Q2 and is poised to achieve its first profit, with operating profit projected at $559 million; in the longer term, it is expected to break even by 2028. This is largely due to Claude Code, the AI coding agent product it launched last May. Unlike OpenAI's full-stack product line, Anthropic's model products follow a 'high-end and specialized' route, with Claude Code's extremely long context window, logical reasoning, and code quality being particularly prominent. This product has significantly driven Anthropic's enterprise revenue, forming its competitive moat.

While Anthropic's path to profitability is clearer than OpenAI's, risks will persist until it begins generating profits. Since the infrastructure costs for model training and inference are fixed and extremely high, Anthropic will face a fatal funding gap as long as revenue growth fails to keep pace—a core risk inherent to asset-heavy models. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has publicly stated that if Anthropic's revenue fails to reach $1 trillion—even if it reaches $800 billion—once that much compute has been purchased, nothing on earth can stop Anthropic from going bankrupt. He further stated: 'If the growth rate forecast is off by a year, or if it grows 5x per year instead of 10x, it will go bankrupt.'

SpaceX's IPO, with a valuation as high as 200 million, will magnify this risk. In addition to a market liquidity crisis, poor performance by SpaceX could trigger a valuation reset for the AI sector, as market concerns escalate regarding the continuous cash burn and lack of profitability among AI startups.

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