OpenAI is preparing to confidentially file its IPO prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as soon as Friday, May 22, 2026, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley acting as lead underwriters and JPMorgan Chase also on the deal. The ChatGPT maker, valued at more than $850 billion in secondary market trades after a $730 billion primary round, is targeting a public debut in the fourth quarter, most likely between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.
A confidential filing, formally a draft registration statement, lets OpenAI exchange financials with the SEC privately and time its public disclosure for favorable market conditions; public S-1 filings typically follow about two months later, with the actual offering another month after that. The move would line up the three largest tech IPOs in history within a six-month window alongside SpaceX, which filed its public S-1 on May 20 for a June Nasdaq listing, and Anthropic, which is eyeing October.
The filing comes days after a federal jury cleared Sam Altman and OpenAI of all claims in Elon Musk’s lawsuit, removing a major governance overhang heading into public markets. An OpenAI spokesperson said the company "regularly evaluates a range of strategic options" but "focus remains on execution," as it juggles a $38 billion Amazon compute deal and multibillion-dollar agreements with AMD and Oracle.