The company announced on Monday that it had submitted a confidential S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but said it had not yet decided when to go public.

In a statement, OpenAI said: “We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it. 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 tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”

The filing places OpenAI alongside competing AI developers Anthropic and Perplexity, which also submitted confidential IPO documents last week and this week.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing for its own stock market debut, setting up what could become one of the biggest waves of technology listings in recent years.

Although OpenAI did not disclose the size of the proposed offering or a timeline for the listing, this development will boost the company’s growth since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.

OpenAI has grown into one of the world’s most valuable private firms, with latest valuation standing at about $852 billion, while Anthropic was recently valued at nearly $965 billion following a new funding round.

According to reports, OpenAI has been working with investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on the IPO process.

The company is also expected to organise a tender offer that would allow employees to sell some of their shares, providing liquidity ahead of any public listing.

OpenAI, however, is still facing challenges to justify its valuation as it spends heavily on computing power and infrastructure needed to train and operate more advanced AI models.

The company has reportedly raised more than $180 billion from investors but is still in a phase of significant spending.

Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said in a recent blog post that the company is entering what he described as its “third phase”.

According to Altman, OpenAI first focused on research into artificial general intelligence before becoming a product company through services such as ChatGPT.

“Now we are entering the third phase,” Altman wrote. “The economy is beginning to reshape around AI. The central question now is how to make advanced AI abundant, affordable, safe, useful, and easy enough for every person and organization to benefit from it.”

The planned IPO arrives shortly after a case involving OpenAI and Musk. An advisory jury recently ruled against claims brought by Musk, who had accused OpenAI and Altman of abandoning commitments related to the company’s original non-profit mission. A federal judge subsequently adopted the jury’s verdict.

The number of AI companies preparing for public listings is also drawing attention across the wider industry.

AI search startup Aravind Srinivas said Perplexity still intends to pursue an IPO in 2028 regardless of how the listings of OpenAI and Anthropic perform.

“Agnostic of these two companies, we were planning for something in 2028, so that still remains the case,” Srinivas told CNBC.

He acknowledged that investor reaction to upcoming AI listings could influence market sentiment, particularly the reception to SpaceX’s offering.

“I certainly think there will be ripple effects if they don’t go well, like there is no sugar coating on that. The SpaceX IPO this week will definitely be a leading indicator of how Anthropic or OpenAI will go out,” he said.

Srinivas added that strong public market performances would benefit the AI sector.

“I think it’s important for the AI industry that these IPOs go well, and I actually think they will go well, because they’re doing well.”

This goes beyond a business transaction to a strategic power play that puts Musk ahead of the competition in the AI industry.

The Strategy Behind the Deal

Musk bought Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion, a price many thought was too high. Now, he’s effectively repositioned it under xAI, and while the $33 billion valuation looks like a loss on paper, the move is anything but a failure.

Fernando Cao, co-founder of Thoughtleadr, described it bluntly in a thread on X:

“Elon Musk just declared war on every AI company. His $80B company, xAI, just bought X for $33B… And he now has the ONE thing OpenAI, Anthropic, & Google desperately need.”

That one thing? Data.

X is no longer just a social media platform, it’s now a real-time data goldmine with 600 million active users generating conversations, opinions, and trends every second. 

For AI companies, high-quality, diverse, and real-world data is indispensable for training better models. Most AI labs rely on scraped web data, licensing agreements, or outdated datasets. Musk now owns a direct pipeline to the internet’s raw, unfiltered human-generated content.

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A Competitive Edge in AI

Musk laid out his vision in his announcement:

“@xAI has acquired @X in an all-stock transaction. The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt). Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centres at unprecedented speed and scale.”

With this deal, xAI no longer faces the same data limitations as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind. While they don’t easily get fresh training data, xAI has unrestricted access to an ongoing stream of human interactions, breaking news, cultural shifts, and social trends—all in real-time.

This data advantage will likely supercharge xAI’s existing models, including Grok, its AI chatbot integrated within X Premium. Unlike ChatGPT and Claude, which rely on periodically updated training sets, Grok can pull live information from X, making it more responsive and relevant in fast-changing discussions.

Musk’s goal is not limited to embedding AI into X. He sees this as the start of a fundamental transformation. In his words:

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution, and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”

What does this mean in practice?

1. Hyper-Personalised Feeds

Current recommendation algorithms on social media are basic compared to what’s coming. With xAI’s deeper machine learning integration, X could evolve into a truly adaptive platform—one that understands not just what users engage with, but why they engage with it.

2. AI-Augmented Conversations

Imagine composing a post on X and having AI suggest improvements, fact-check in real time, or translate it instantly. Debates could be moderated by AI, reducing misinformation and clarifying misunderstandings before they escalate.

3. The “Everything App” Reality

Elon Musk has long talked about turning X into an all-in-one digital ecosystem. With AI at its core, X could integrate:

• Content creation tools (AI-generated articles, videos, and art)
• Virtual assistants (like an evolved version of Siri or Alexa, but deeply personalised)
• Knowledge-sharing hubs (AI-enhanced forums, expert-driven discussions)

Cao believes this shift is already happening:

“X is transforming from a social media platform into an AI-powered ecosystem. This means unprecedented opportunities for those who establish their presence on X now, before the full integration takes effect.”

He compares it to the early days of YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, when the first wave of creators gained massive advantages. As AI-powered distribution improves, those who position themselves on X today could reap exponential benefits.

In structuring the deal so that xAI, not X, is the acquiring entity, Elon Musk sidesteps many regulatory issues. Governments around the world have cracked down on big tech consolidations, but this acquisition is framed as an AI expansion rather than a social media takeover.

For competitors like OpenAI and Google, the stakes just got higher. The AI industry is built on data, models, and compute power—and Musk has now strengthened all three pillars. He owns the infrastructure, the algorithms, and now, the world’s largest real-time dataset.

It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy, but if Elon Musk is right, this move won’t just redefine X—it could completely change how AI is developed, deployed, and experienced worldwide.

And, as he put it in his closing statement:

“This is just the beginning.”