OpenAI has ruled out going public in 2026, with CEO Sam Altman telling Fortune the company feels no pressure to rush to Wall Street while safety questions around its rapidly advancing technology remain unresolved. "Right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public, and we don't feel pressure on that," Altman said, according to Axios' reporting on the comments.

Altman said the company still has "a lot of work to do, including meeting the safety and alignment requirements of this moment and figuring out how the industry and governments can work together" — language that stopped short of naming a new target date for an offering that had been widely expected as soon as this year.

A Split With Rivals on Timing

The announcement lands awkwardly alongside a Saturday essay from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who argued AI companies "must slow the pace" of capability gains — a warning that, on its face, would seem to apply just as much to Anthropic's own plans. Yet Benzinga reports Anthropic has not slowed its own IPO preparations, reportedly targeting a valuation near $2 trillion and a raise of up to $100 billion, with marketing for the offering expected to begin as early as mid-October — weeks ahead of November's midterm elections.

"RIGHT NOW WOULD BE AN ILL-ADVISED MOMENT TO GO PUBLIC"

The contrast puts two of the industry's biggest names on opposite sides of the same safety argument at the same moment, with OpenAI framing caution as a reason to wait and Anthropic, by outside accounts, pressing ahead regardless. Quartz's write-up of Altman's remarks notes he made no commitment to a 2027 timeline either, leaving the company's public-market ambitions officially open-ended.

OpenAI has spent much of the past two years fielding pressure from investors eager for liquidity after a string of enormous private funding rounds, alongside mounting scrutiny from regulators and AI-safety researchers over how fast the company is shipping increasingly capable models. A delayed IPO removes one source of near-term investor pressure but does not resolve the underlying safety debate driving it.

Neither OpenAI nor Anthropic has set a firm date for any future public offering. Markets will be watching whether Anthropic's reported mid-October marketing push actually materializes — and whether it reignites pressure on OpenAI to reconsider its own timeline.