The artificial intelligence leader OpenAI has officially entered the unprecedented super-IPO competition, following rivals Anthropic and SpaceX in initiating their public listing processes. On Monday local time, OpenAI announced it had confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), while also emphasizing that a specific timeline for going public has not yet been finalized. As these three ultra-highly-valued tech firms surge toward the public markets, a major debate is intensifying among investors and fund managers over whether the U.S. stock market can absorb a combined potential market value increase approaching $4 trillion.
OpenAI confirmed the news in a statement, candidly explaining that the proactive disclosure was made because the company anticipated the document would be leaked. "We recently submitted the S-1 confidentially, and we expect it to leak, so we're just announcing it ourselves," the statement read. "We haven't decided on a timeline. It could take a while, as there are things we want to do that may be easier as a private company. But this involves complex trade-offs, and submitting the filing gives us the option to go public as early as possible at the optimal time."
This aligns with previous comments from OpenAI's Chief Financial Officer, Sarah Friar, who stated in April that for a company of OpenAI's scale, aligning "in image, operation, and mindset" with public companies is a "good governance habit." According to informed sources, OpenAI is working with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on its listing preparations, with the law firm Cooley also part of the advisory team. If progress is smooth, the company could debut on the public markets as early as this autumn.
Prior to a formal listing, the company also plans to launch a tender offer for employee shares in the coming weeks. This would allow employees to sell a portion of their shares at the valuation from the latest funding round completed in March—$852 billion—to alleviate internal liquidity pressures. To date, OpenAI has raised over $180 billion cumulatively but continues to spend heavily on building the massive infrastructure required to support AI training and operations.
Notably, a significant legal hurdle for OpenAI's IPO was recently cleared. Last month, a court in California dismissed a lawsuit brought by Elon Musk against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. The jury found that Musk had waited too long to assert that the company had breached its non-profit promises, and the judge adopted that ruling in court. Although Musk argued the decision was a "procedural technicality" and not a ruling on the merits, the outcome undoubtedly removes a major uncertainty from OpenAI's path to an IPO.
Altman's "Phase Three" and Strategic Focus
Concurrently with the IPO filing, Sam Altman outlined in a blog post the "third phase" that OpenAI is entering. He divided the company's development into: Phase One, conducting foundational research toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI); Phase Two, becoming a product company and observing how people use its tools; and the current Phase Three, where "the economy is reshaping around AI, and the central question is how to make advanced AI abundant, accessible, safe, and beneficial, so that every person and organization can benefit from it."
To this end, OpenAI has set three strategic goals: building systems capable of automating AI research, with internal expectations that by March 2028 a significant portion of research work could be completed by AI in collaboration with human researchers; accelerating the overall economy by advancing science, productivity, and economic growth, with broad sharing of the benefits; and ultimately enabling every person on Earth to have access to a "personal AGI."
Facing intense competition, OpenAI is attempting to become more focused. The company has recently shut down peripheral projects like the short-video application Sora while heavily investing in its enterprise business and the coding assistant product Codex, which competes directly with Anthropic's hit product Claude Code. Altman even remarked on social media that "it feels like Codex is having its own ChatGPT moment."
Currently, ChatGPT boasts over 900 million weekly active users, but OpenAI still faces challenges including some internal revenue and user growth falling short of targets, as well as the departure or stepping back of several key executives.
Rivals at the Gates: Anthropic and SpaceX
OpenAI is not alone; its competitive landscape has become exceptionally crowded. Just a week ago, its most direct AI competitor, Anthropic—the creator of the Claude chatbot—announced it had confidentially submitted its IPO application to the SEC. Anthropic's valuation soared to $965 billion in its most recent private funding round, surpassing OpenAI's valuation for the first time. Informed sources indicate that Anthropic also expects to achieve a trillion-dollar-level valuation in the public markets.
More immediate competition comes from the space and AI conglomerate Space Exploration Technologies Corp, led by Elon Musk. Following its merger with xAI, SpaceX is accelerating its "orbital data center" AI narrative, positioning itself as a company providing AI infrastructure from space. SpaceX submitted its IPO registration statement in mid-May and began investor roadshows last week, targeting a market debut as early as June 12th. According to its filings, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) are all listed as "key competitors" in the AI field.
Compiled data suggests SpaceX is expected to list with a valuation of approximately $1.77 trillion, aiming to raise $75 billion. While Anthropic's final IPO fundraising size is not yet set, market consensus predicts it could exceed $60 billion. Combined with the potential future offering size from OpenAI, the total fundraising from these three companies could easily surpass $200 billion, injecting a combined new market capitalization approaching $4 trillion into the market.
Index Inclusion and Lockup Expirations: A Double Test for Market Supply
Faced with supply of this magnitude, whether the U.S. stock market can smoothly absorb it has become a primary concern for traders. In the short term, passive fund allocation through index funds may provide some support. Steve Sosnick, Chief Strategist at Interactive Brokers, noted that the key lies in the speed at which new listings are included in major indices. If newly public companies are quickly added to benchmark indices like the S&P 500 or the Russell 3000, ETFs tracking these indices would be forced to buy in, creating buying pressure initially.
However, analysts point out that even at the currently estimated sky-high valuations, SpaceX's initial weighting in the S&P 500 might only be around 0.1%. Even under the Nasdaq 100's maximum three-times float weighting rule, its initial weighting would likely only be about 0.5%, suggesting the actual short-term support from passive funds could be relatively limited.
The market's real apprehension lies in the selling pressure following the expiration of IPO lockup periods. Taking SpaceX as an example, the proportion of freely tradable shares initially is expected to be only about 4%. However, according to its disclosed lockup release schedule, insiders could sell 20% of their holdings after the first quarterly earnings report, with an additional 10% allowed if the stock price rises more than 30% above the offering price. Approximately half of the shares held by Musk himself cannot be sold for 366 days post-listing, with restrictions on the rest lifted earlier.
When these massive tranches of shares gradually enter the secondary market, they could exert sustained pressure on the supply-demand balance. Historical data also offers a warning. Research by University of Florida professor Jay Ritter shows that from 1980 to 2024, the average three-year return for U.S. companies post-IPO underperformed the broader market by 20 percentage points. Companies with valuations exceeding 40 times revenue performed even worse, underperforming by a staggering 58 percentage points. SpaceX's near $1.8 trillion valuation represents over 90 times its revenue. Such a high valuation multiple implies that even if short-term hype pushes the stock price higher, the pressure for long-term valuation normalization will be substantial.
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