OpenAI has secretly filed for an IPO, but CEO Sam Altman says the company doesn’t plan to go public this year.
Altman was recently interviewed by Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alison Shontell. In the aftermath of the OpenAI-HuggingFace hack and a broader debate about the safety of AI, Shontell asked if OpenAI still feels pressure to “act very quickly” due to its IPO plans.
“We’re in no rush to do an IPO,” Altman said. “We actually don’t think it’s wise to go public right now, given everything is happening safely.”
Instead, he argued that OpenAI will go public “when it’s ready, when the business is ready, and when we see what’s going on in society with this technology and feel it’s ready.” Asked if that meant there wouldn’t be an IPO in 2026, Altman said, “I don’t think there will be an IPO in 2026, yeah. There’s a lot of work to do.”
The New York Times reported in June that OpenAI had hired bankers and lawyers with the goal of going public in the third or fourth quarter of 2026, but was leaning toward 2027 due to the volatility of tech stocks and its own financial challenges.
