OpenAI Leans Toward Postponing IPO to 2027
Taylor Wilson
OpenAI now leans toward pushing its IPO to 2027, because CEO Sam Altman refuses any valuation below $1 trillion — yet SpaceX's post-listing slide and Anthropic's sprint to go public first are making the cost of waiting steeper by the month.
Why insist on a trillion-dollar floor?
Bankers advising OpenAI laid out two paths: wait until 2027 for markets and financials to catch up to a trillion-dollar tag, or list by late 2026 at a lower price.
Altman's answer was blunt — any plan that cuts the valuation below $1 trillion is "a non-starter."
This means → the IPO timeline is not set by market windows; it is locked to a hard valuation floor.
In plain terms = the question is not "when is a good time to list" but "when will the market pay this price."
What lesson does SpaceX's slide teach OpenAI?
SpaceX listed on June 12 at $135 a share, hitting a $1.77 trillion market cap on day one; retail subscriptions topped $100 billion.
The stock then fell steadily: down roughly 16% on June 23, breaking below the IPO price on July 15 for the first time, and closing at $108 on July 31 — a 48.4% drop from its all-time high.
This means → even a marquee name like SpaceX could not hold a sky-high valuation once retail euphoria faded — over $1.2 trillion in market cap evaporated from the peak.
OpenAI's advisors told the company plainly: retail investors may lack enthusiasm for its stock. Fidelity pegged OpenAI's anchor valuation at $700–800 billion, well short of a trillion.
Can OpenAI's own finances support the wait?
Net loss last year: $38.5 billion. In Q1 2026 alone, the company burned $3.7 billion in cash — more than half its $5.7 billion in revenue for the same quarter.
OpenAI projects spending $600 billion on compute and hardware through 2030.
In plain terms = the company's revenue does not even cover half its cash burn today — and the spending plan ahead is growing exponentially.
Some large investors have privately raised concerns about the pace of cash consumption.
Why has Anthropic become the biggest wildcard?
In late May, Anthropic closed a $65 billion Series H round at a post-money valuation of $965 billion — already above OpenAI's $852 billion.
On June 1, Anthropic confidentially filed for an IPO with the SEC. Its underwriters — Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan — have begun arranging management meetings with prospective investors; listing could come as early as October.
This means → OpenAI originally aimed to list before Anthropic; now it may trail by more than a year.
This reflects a deeper signal: some investors are already hedging their OpenAI bets by putting money into Anthropic — capital is voting with its feet.
What does this waiting game ultimately prove?
If OpenAI delays to 2027, it must demonstrate two things in the interim: revenue growth that outpaces its cash burn, and a moat that Anthropic has not eroded.
In plain terms = waiting by itself creates no value — whether a trillion-dollar valuation materializes in 2027 depends on execution over the next eighteen months, not on market sentiment.
Whether the public market will price OpenAI at $1 trillion then becomes the ultimate verdict on this bet to wait.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.