OpenAI Targets September IPO With Goldman, Morgan Stanley

OpenAI plans a September initial public offering and has engaged Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as lead underwriters, according to people familiar with the plans. The company could file a confidential registration with regulators within days, accelerating preparatory work after a jury dismissed Elon Musk’s $150 billion lawsuit.

A confidential filing would give regulators time to review OpenAI’s financial disclosures before the company launches a public roadshow and sets a price for its shares. The registration would begin the formal process of converting large private holdings into publicly tradable stock.

A jury dismissed Musk’s suit on procedural grounds, finding the claims were filed too late. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and left in 2018, wrote on X that he plans to appeal to the Ninth Circuit and that the judge and jury did not rule on the merits. “I will be filing an appeal with the Ninth Circuit,” he wrote.

OpenAI has not set a timeline for pricing or share allocation and did not respond to requests for comment. Once public filings begin, investors and regulators will be able to review the company’s governance, financial arrangements with investors and its private fundraising history.

The company has warned that all OpenAI equity is subject to transfer restrictions and that any transfer, pledge or encumbrance without written consent is void. The notice followed unauthorized attempts to tokenize private AI shares in cryptocurrency markets that led to sharp price swings.

OpenAI has raised roughly $180 billion in funding. Private transactions most recently valued the company at about $852 billion, while some secondary-market pricing places the firm near $900 billion. On platforms that trade restricted shares, OpenAI-linked paper recently changed hands around $735 per share, up roughly 40% over three months and about 120% year over year.

The jury dismissal removes a legal uncertainty that had been cited by some as a barrier to a public listing; Musk’s planned appeal means litigation could continue even as regulatory work on an IPO proceeds.