OpenAI has taken the first formal step towards a stock market debut, confirming that it has confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), even as the company stressed that an initial public offering (IPO) may still be some distance away.

“We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it,” the company said in a brief statement on Monday. “We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of trade-offs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best,” the company announced in a blog.

An IPO option, not a countdown

A confidential S-1 allows a company to begin discussions with regulators without immediately disclosing detailed financial information to the public. The process gives firms time to address SEC comments and refine disclosures before launching a roadshow for investors.

OpenAI’s filing comes at a pivotal moment for the artificial intelligence industry. Just a week ago, rival Anthropic confidentially filed its own draft S-1 with the SEC after raising $65 billion in fresh capital at a post-money valuation of $965 billion, overtaking OpenAI’s $852 billion valuation and becoming the world’s most valuable AI company.

The two companies are now heading towards public markets from positions of unprecedented scale. OpenAI said in January that its annualised revenue had crossed $20 billion in 2025, up from $6 billion in 2024 and $2 billion in 2023. By March, the figure had reportedly climbed to more than $25 billion.

Anthropic’s growth has been even more dramatic. The Claude-maker reported more than $47 billion in annualised revenue earlier this year, fuelled by strong enterprise demand for its AI models and coding products.

The filing also comes as public markets prepare for another blockbuster technology debut. Elon Musk's SpaceX is expected to begin trading this week at a valuation of about $1.75 trillion after raising roughly $75 billion in what is set to be the largest IPO in history.