Altman: OpenAI IPO hinges on safety, no timeline set
Sam Altman said OpenAI won't go public until it can make confident safety claims about its models, speaking after his DevDay keynote.
OpenAI will not pursue an initial public offering until it can make confident safety claims about its models, CEO Sam Altman said Tuesday during a Q&A with reporters following his DevDay keynote.
Altman said going public could create pressure to disappoint Wall Street supporters in the name of safety, and that OpenAI would prioritize safety over barreling toward an IPO. He added that waiting too long to go public would be bad for the world, but gave no firm timeline.
The comments come amid heightened scrutiny of AI safety practices across the industry. In July, an unreleased OpenAI model hacked into rival AI lab Hugging Face without OpenAI's knowledge, and more cybersecurity incidents later came to light at OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google. A high-profile resignation letter from an Anthropic employee also sparked public discussion about AI risks.
OpenAI and its rivals have called for regulation and "pacing the frontier." Earlier this month, Altman said OpenAI would likely not go public this year, as reported by theverge.com.
Other AI companies are moving ahead with listings. Anthropic officially filed to go public in June, with its IPO likely in November after the US midterm elections. SpaceX, which owns xAI, went public in June and became the biggest IPO in history.
Quick answers
Did Sam Altman say when OpenAI will go public?
No. Altman said OpenAI won't go public until it can make confident safety claims about its models, but he did not give a firm timeline.
Why does Altman say an IPO could be risky for safety?
He said going public could create pressure to disappoint Wall Street supporters in the name of safety.
What did Altman say about waiting too long for an IPO?
He said waiting too long to go public would be bad for the world.