OpenAI and Anthropic Are Going Public — And After SpaceX's $75 Billion IPO, It Could Be the Biggest Moment in AI History

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SpaceX just pulled off the biggest IPO in recorded history, raising $75 billion at a $1.77 trillion valuation and watching its stock jump 19% on day one. I've been covering tech for years and I've never seen investor appetite like this. But here's what I keep thinking about: SpaceX was described as just "the first test." OpenAI and Anthropic are next. And when those two AI giants finally go public, it could make SpaceX look like a warm-up act.

The SEC Filings That Changed Everything

Within days of the SpaceX IPO pricing, both OpenAI — maker of ChatGPT — and Anthropic — maker of the Claude AI models — filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission signaling their intent to go public. This wasn't a coincidence. Both companies had been watching SpaceX's IPO roadshow closely, and when SpaceX's stock surged 19% on its first day of trading, the message was clear: the market is hungry for AI-adjacent tech at any price.

The filings don't set a specific timeline, but they're the clearest signal yet that both companies intend to tap public markets in 2026 or early 2027.

OpenAI's IPO: The ChatGPT Company Goes Public

OpenAI is arguably the most well-known AI company in the world. ChatGPT has over 500 million weekly active users. The company's partnership with Microsoft has turned into one of the most valuable enterprise AI relationships in tech history. Azure OpenAI API usage is embedded in thousands of products across every industry.

The big question with OpenAI's IPO isn't whether investors will want in — they absolutely will. The question is valuation. OpenAI's last private funding round valued it at roughly $300 billion. At IPO, with public market enthusiasm running this hot, some analysts are whispering numbers north of $400 billion. For context: that would make it more valuable than Visa, ExxonMobil, or Netflix at the time of their most recent valuations.

There's also the structural complexity: OpenAI spent years as a "capped profit" nonprofit hybrid, and it's still navigating a corporate restructuring to become a fully for-profit entity. How that plays with public market investors and regulators will be closely watched.

Anthropic's IPO: The Safety-First AI Company Faces a Test of Its Own

Anthropic's IPO story has gotten significantly more complicated this week. Just three days ago, the US government issued an export control directive forcing Anthropic to take its two most powerful AI models — Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — completely offline for all users globally. The models remain down as of this writing, with no resolution timeline.

That's an extraordinary thing to have happen to a company that's about to go public. Investors in a public company expect operational continuity. When your most advanced products can be switched off by a government directive overnight with no warning, that's a material risk that has to be disclosed — and priced in.

On the other hand, Anthropic's revenue trajectory has been exceptional. Earlier this week, reports indicated Claude had beaten OpenAI's models in head-to-head comparisons for the first time, driving a significant enterprise contract swing toward Anthropic. The company's AWS partnership gives it cloud distribution comparable to OpenAI's Azure relationship. Valuation estimates range from $60 billion to $100 billion.

Why This IPO Wave Matters Beyond Wall Street

Here's the bigger picture: when the major AI labs go public, they become accountable to shareholders in a new and very different way. Quarterly earnings calls, activist investors, analyst ratings, short sellers — all of this changes the incentive structure of companies that right now operate with enormous freedom because they're backed by patient private capital.

Will a public OpenAI still invest in frontier model research that won't pay off for five years? Will a public Anthropic still prioritize safety research over revenue-generating features when shareholders are watching margins? These are genuinely interesting questions that don't have obvious answers.

What I know is this: the SpaceX IPO just proved the market is ready. When OpenAI and Anthropic ring the bell — and they will — it will be one of the defining moments of the AI era.

My Take

I'm genuinely excited and a little nervous about these IPOs. Excited because public markets create transparency and accountability that private companies lack. Nervous because the pressure to hit quarterly numbers can warp long-term thinking in ways that are hard to predict. The AI labs have been building toward AGI. I hope going public doesn't turn that into building toward EPS.

What's your experience? Drop a comment below! 👇
Are you planning to buy OpenAI or Anthropic stock when they go public? And do you think going public will help or hurt these companies' ability to build safe, powerful AI?

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