OpenAI IPO plans have been shelved for 2026, with CEO Sam Altman telling Fortune that going public now would be an “ill-advised moment” given the mounting safety concerns surrounding advanced artificial intelligence. The decision comes as growing numbers of US lawmakers call for new rules to govern AI systems after dire warnings from two researchers at OpenAI rival Anthropic that rapidly progressing artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of the human race in the not-too-distant future.
Altman said OpenAI feels no pressure to pursue a public listing, and he indicated that the company has “a lot of stuff to do,” including meeting the moment of what will be required for safety and alignment and how the industry and governments can work together. When asked by Fortune whether 2026 is off the table in favour of 2027, Altman responded, “I would say not 2026.”
The New York Times in June reported that San Francisco-based OpenAI was considering whether to hold off on a potentially trillion-dollar IPO until next year. At the time, shares in Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO were tumbling after a surge that sent that company’s valuation to $1.8 trillion. Altman also suggested that OpenAI and other leading AI companies may be close to announcing an agreement to slow AI development and work together to address safety risks.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Saturday urged AI companies to take a more deliberate approach to development. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei wrote in an essay shared on social media. Altman later posted that he agreed with the sentiment. “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman wrote in a response to Amodei’s post on the X platform. “This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.”
The warnings follow cases of AI agents going rogue to hack external systems and AI safety researchers quitting their companies concerned about the technology’s risks. Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, have responded with alarm and calls for more action. Despite the safety concerns, Anthropic’s own IPO plans have not slowed down so far. Anthropic is expected to begin marketing its initial public offering in mid-October at the earliest and complete the listing days before the US midterm elections in November, people familiar with the matter told Reuters this month.
For now, OpenAI’s decision to hold off on a public listing reflects a broader reckoning in the tech industry, where calls to prioritise safety over speed are growing louder. The shelving of the OpenAI IPO underscores how regulatory and ethical pressures are reshaping the timeline for one of the world’s most closely watched private companies.
Source: Geo News