OpenAI has submitted a confidential IPO application, will initiate an employee stock buyback, and is set to clash with Wall Street against Anthropic

According to Sentinel Beating monitoring, OpenAI has announced that it has confidentially submitted an IPO draft to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and plans to provide a stock buyback cash-out channel for employees in the coming weeks. OpenAI is working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to prepare for the IPO, with the earliest listing date set for this fall. OpenAI noted that the confidential draft submission can provide more flexibility, as certain operations are easier to conduct as a private company, and the final IPO date has not yet been determined.

OpenAI's move marks the official start of a Wall Street funding battle among the three tech giants with a combined valuation of nearly $1 trillion. Just a week ago, competitor Anthropic also confidentially submitted an IPO application and reached a valuation of $965 billion in the latest round of private funding, surpassing OpenAI's $852 billion for the first time. In addition, Elon Musk's SpaceX, under SpaceX, plans to go public this Thursday with a target valuation of $1.8 trillion. With a large number of super-unicorns flocking to the public market, investors' limited funds will face diversification pressure.

Going public will expose large-scale model enterprises to the scrutiny of the secondary market. To procure chips and build data centers, large-scale model research and development are consuming astronomical amounts of money. OpenAI had previously disclosed to investors its plan to invest around $600 billion in AI infrastructure by 2030. Despite raising a record-breaking $122 billion, OpenAI's cash burn rate remains extremely high. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that OpenAI faces challenges such as not meeting internal revenue targets, several executive departures, and a disagreement between CEO Sam Altman and CFO Sarah Frayer on the IPO timeline. At the same time, OpenAI is in discussions with the Trump administration to explore the possibility of the U.S. government holding direct stakes in the artificial intelligence lab. Just weeks before submitting the draft, a California court dismissed Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman, clearing legal hurdles for the IPO preparations.