This week, OpenAI may submit an IPO to compete with Musk’s SpaceX

ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI, is aiming for a public debut in September, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Days after Sam Altman’s legal victory over Elon Musk—whose own rocket company is set to file its IPO paperwork as early as Wednesday.

OpenAI’s bankers have been preparing confidential initial documents that could reach the Securities and Exchange Commission within days. People familiar with the matter told the Journal, though plans remain flexible.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are among the firms advising the company on the draft prospectus.With September proposed as a possible launch window, according to the Journal.

The filing would come just days after a federal jury in Oakland, California, dismissed Musk’s lawsuit against Altman. OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, and the company itself on Monday—a ruling Musk said he plans to appeal.

In advance of a possible June offering, SpaceX, Musk’s rocket and satellite company, is anticipated to submit its IPO documentation on Wednesday.

Altman Vs Musk

A long-running disagreement between Altman and Musk, who co-created OpenAI in 2015 until Musk quit the board in 2018 and later founded his rival company. xAI, provides the backdrop for OpenAI and SpaceX’s race toward the public market. Which is taking place just months apart. In 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming that Altman and Brockman had compromised the lab’s nonprofit objective and profited from the company’s transformation into a Microsoft-backed for-profit enterprise.

That issue was resolved by Monday’s verdict. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed the case after concurring with the jury that Musk had put off filing his claims for too long. According to reports, SpaceX is scheduled to make its public IPO documents available as early as this week after filing its own confidential initial paperwork with the SEC on April 1.

$1 trillion. That is the approximate valuation OpenAI is targeting for its public debut, Reuters reported last October. SpaceX aims to achieve a valuation of between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion in its IPO. Which would break the previous record set by Saudi Aramco’s $29 billion offering in 2019. OpenAI’s latest private valuation was $852 billion, thanks to a $122 billion funding round in March.