OpenAI Confirms Confidential S-1 to SEC Aiming for IPO Valuation of Up to $850 Billion Behind Anthropic
OpenAI confirmed on Monday that it has filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC aiming for a valuation between $730 billion and $850 billion, just weeks after Anthropic did the same at $965 billion.
The First Frontier IPO is No Longer Hypothetical
OpenAI confirmed on Monday that it has filed a confidential Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the first formal step for an initial public offering that the market has speculated about for two years. "We recently submitted a confidential S-1," the company stated in a press release. "We expect it to leak, so we're just announcing it."
The confirmation comes about a week after Anthropic made a similar move, according to CNBC, with a reported valuation of $965 billion. OpenAI is targeting a valuation range between $730 billion and $850 billion, a range that reflects the $122 billion funding round closed in March, which valued the company at $852 billion post-money.
Why File Now Without Confirming the Valuation Range
OpenAI's statement dedicated an entire line to managing expectations: "We have not yet decided on the timeline; it may take time because there are things we want to do that are 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 it is the best path forward." The language is the opposite of a tight roadshow. The company indicates that the confidential S-1 is a safeguard against scenarios, not a commitment to an IPO this quarter.
The contrast with Anthropic is worth noting. Dario Amodei finds himself halfway through a legal battle with the Department of Defense, which designated the company as a "supply chain risk" in March after Anthropic refused to remove guardrails against mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. In April, a federal appellate court in Washington denied a stay to suspend the designation. The company argues in court documents that the designation could reduce its 2026 revenue by "several billion dollars" and jeopardize hundreds of millions in private contracts.
Even with this regulatory liability, Anthropic brought the S-1 to the table first. The implication is that institutional investors no longer need Microsoft to acquire OpenAI or Google to buy Anthropic for direct exposure to the core of generative AI.
What This Means for the Company’s CFO
For a CIO or CFO who signs an annual contract with OpenAI or Anthropic, the most immediate signal is not the ticker. It is the disclosure obligation. Following the actual deconfidentialization of the S-1, both will have to detail customer concentration, exposure to partners, dependence on Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, inference costs per revenue, and profit margins that currently exist in rumors. For clients paying seven to eight digits per year for API calls, seeing revenue concentration per customer listed in a prospectus shifts the balance in the next renegotiation.
Dependence on hyperscalers is particularly sensitive. OpenAI runs a significant portion of its inference on Microsoft Azure, with exclusivity clauses discussed in recent contract adjustments. Anthropic has committed to a multi-year agreement for the use of Amazon Web Services clusters with Trainium and Inferentia chips. When the S-1 deconfidentializes, these details will transition from specialized press to auditable material facts.
Europe and Brazil in this Map
European regulation comes into play via Article 50 of the AI Act, which starts being enforced from August 2. A listed company needs to explain to EU investors how it complies with transparency and watermarking in synthetic content. In Brazil, the advantage of the IPO is more indirect: banks and consultancies that sign global contracts with OpenAI or Anthropic gain financial visibility over the provider that currently does not exist. Itaú, BTG, Falconi, and CI&T, all clients or partners, will have audited prospectuses to support supplier diligence without relying on bilateral NDAs.
The lingering question is which of the two will price first. Anthropic filed first, but Altman has 36 months of experience controlling market narrative. SpaceX, which is holding a roadshow in the same June span targeting $1.77 trillion, is the ceiling that determines whether the window is open or if it will need to wait until 2027.