OpenAI weighs delaying its IPO into 2027 after a rocky SpaceX public debut cools the trillion-dollar timing
OpenAI filed confidentially in June 2026 targeting a Q3/Q4 listing near a $1 trillion valuation. After a rough SpaceX debut chilled the market for mega-cap tech listings, OpenAI is now said to be weighing a slip into 2027 — while Anthropic, which filed 1 June, is reportedly still tracking a late-2026 debut.
Timing is now the whole game. Both companies filed confidentially within weeks of each other, so the question is not whether the frontier labs go public but who goes first and into what market. A weak SpaceX debut is exactly the kind of comparable that makes a banker counsel patience, because a mega-cap that opens soft drags the next one's pricing.
The prospectus asymmetry sharpens the decision. A fall listing would put OpenAI's 2025 losses on the same page where Anthropic advertises an expected first operating profit — a side-by-side no CFO wants at pricing. Delaying to 2027 buys time to close that gap, at the cost of ceding the first-mover narrative to a rival that has already passed it on valuation.
The broader read is that the private-to-public transition of the frontier is beginning, and it will be the first time public markets price these companies directly rather than through venture rounds. Whichever lab lists first sets the comparable the others are measured against — which is why the timing fight is really a fight over who defines the frontier's valuation math.
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