Sam Altman wants OpenAI to be worth $1 trillion before it touches the public markets. That’s the number. Anything below it is, in his view, a nonstarter.
The OpenAI CEO has effectively killed any prospect of the company going public this year, calling a 2026 IPO ill-advised despite the company having already filed its S-1 registration statement with the SEC back in June. The new target is 2027, with a caveat that it could come sooner if the business environment cooperates.
A trillion-dollar threshold
OpenAI’s most recent private valuation landed at roughly $852 billion as of March 2026. That’s an extraordinary number for a company that’s still posting losses. But it’s not $1 trillion, and for Altman, that gap matters.
Internal discussions shifted over the summer. Advisers and executives began recommending a delay, pointing to volatile market conditions and the performance of other high-profile tech IPOs as reasons to pump the brakes. SpaceX’s post-IPO stock volatility, in particular, served as a cautionary example that apparently resonated with OpenAI’s leadership team.
