Several major companies — including Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Sam Altman’s OpenAI, and competitor Anthropic — are eyeing enormous stock market debuts as soon as next year, all vying to attain an astronomical valuation north of $100 billion.
In late October, OpenAI was rumored to be laying the groundwork for a mammoth IPO that would boost its value to $1 trillion, further raising the stakes as the AI industry is starting to struggle to convince investors of the tech’s long-term value.
The mercurial Altman, though, is playing it all down. In a Thursday episode of tech journalist Alex Kantrowitz’s “Big Technology Podcast,” the billionaire didn’t even attempt to feign excitement over the prospect of far more scrutiny and regulatory oversight as an openly traded company.
“Am I excited to be a public company CEO?” he said. “Zero percent.”
“Am I excited for OpenAI to be a public company?” he added. “In some ways, I am, and in some ways I think it’d be really annoying.”
At the same time, the CEO stopped far short of revealing plans for a 2026 IPO.
“I don’t know,” he said cryptically. “We will be very late to go public.”
His comments, however, highlight lingering questions over the AI industry. Experts have long warned of an AI bubble that could be set to burst — potentially even taking down the rest of the economy with it.
Even as a privately-run company, OpenAI has already been under plenty of scrutiny, especially as competition continues to encroach on its early lead. Altman even recently declared a “code red” in a memo to employees, urging them to double down on improving ChatGPT at the cost of delaying other projects.
And according to the CEO, it certainly won’t be the last time, either.
“I think that it’s good to be paranoid and act quickly when a potential competitive threat emerges,” Altman told Kantrowitz. “My guess is we’ll be doing these once maybe twice a year for a long time, and that’s part of really just making sure that we win in our space.”
“I think Google is still a huge threat, you know,” Altman admitted. “Extremely powerful company.”
We can only speculate how markets will react when OpenAI goes public. But considering the sheer amount of pressure that’s on the company, it’s no wonder Altman is unhappy with the fate he has created for himself.
All eyes are already on the firm as the AI industry continues to shift and make wild swings as it attempts to justify its sky-high buzz — and going public will only crank up the pressure.
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