OpenAI announced today that it has filed confidentially for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it,” the AI startup said in a blog post.
“We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”
A company can choose to file a confidential IPO so that any needed revisions would be made without public scrutiny of the company’s financial information.
In March, OpenAI said it had closed $122 billion in funding to value the startup at $852 billion. It is reportedly the largest funding round in history.
The expected IPO is among the most widely anticipated blockbuster offerings this year. Last week, rival Anthropic announced its own confidential IPO filing.
SpaceX, which has filed for the largest IPO in history, is set to start trading on June 12 on the Nasdaq. The IPO price for its Class A shares was set at $135, according to a filing with the SEC.
Founder, Chairman and CEO Elon Musk owns 12.2% of Class A shares and 93.3% of Class B shares. Class B shares convey 10 votes per share held by their owners while Class A gives one vote per share. As a result, Musk would end up with 84.3% of voting rights of SpaceX after it goes public.