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OpenAI is working with bankers to prepare a confidential IPO filing with regulators, possibly as early as Friday, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company, valued at $852 billion, is targeting a public debut as early as September, though the plans could still change, the outlet said.
The prospectus is being prepared with assistance from bankers at Goldman Sachs $GS +4.68% and Morgan Stanley $MS +3.87%, among other firms, the outlet reported. Within the company, there is reported tension over timing: Sam Altman is said to be pushing for a swift public debut, whereas CFO Sarah Friar has cautioned leadership that the company may not yet be ready, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A lawsuit brought by co-founder Elon Musk had posed a significant threat to the listing, but a court ruling this week went in OpenAI's favor, removing that obstacle — though Musk has vowed to appeal, the outlet noted. SpaceX, the rocket company also controlled by Musk, is anticipated to release its own IPO documents this week as it works toward a possible listing in June, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The company still faces challenges on its path to a public listing. OpenAI missed internal targets for both revenue and new users, with Friar warning colleagues that slow revenue growth could limit the company's ability to honor its data center commitments. An internal goal of one billion weekly active ChatGPT users by year's end went unmet, and the company's annual revenue target slipped as Google $GOOGL -0.64%'s Gemini claimed a larger share of the market, according to The Wall Street Journal. Anthropic's gains in coding and enterprise software pushed OpenAI below its monthly revenue goals on several occasions earlier this year, the outlet added.
