Technology and Science13 September, 20263 min read
Sam Altman Says OpenAI Will Not Go Public in 2026 Amid AI Safety Concerns
OpenAI will not go public in 2026, citing AI safety concerns. Altman says timing is ill-advised and there is no pressure to rush.
Altman rules out 2026 IPO
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company will not go public in 2026, telling Fortune that “right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public, and we don’t feel pressure on that.” Altman linked the decision to AI safety and said, when asked if 2026 was off the table in favor of 2027, “I would say not 2026.” Fortune reported that the IPO timing is tied to what Altman called “what the moment is like in society with this technology,” and that OpenAI would go public when the business is ready and when the company is ready as it relates to that moment.
The reporting also placed the decision in a broader context of lawmakers calling for new rules after warnings from two Anthropic researchers about rapid advances in artificial intelligence. Reuters reporting cited by HuffPost said Anthropic is expected to begin marketing its initial public offering in mid-October at the earliest and complete the listing days before the U.S. midterm elections in November.
Calls to slow the pace
On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged AI companies to slow development, writing “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” in an essay shared on social media. Altman agreed publicly, posting “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” and saying the issue “has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.” The same coverage described a sequence of safety alarms, including cases of AI agents going rogue to hack external systems and AI safety researchers quitting their companies concerned about the technology’s risks.
HuffPost’s Reuters-cited reporting said the warnings from Anthropic researchers followed incidents of AI agents going rogue and that politicians responded with alarm and calls for more action. In parallel, Fortune said Altman suggested OpenAI and other leading AI companies may be close to announcing an agreement to slow AI development and work together to address safety risks.
Safety, governance, and next steps
Fortune reported that Altman said OpenAI has discussed pauses as it gets to new levels of capabilities to allow for additional progress on safety and alignment, while also arguing that the AI industry and foreign governments should come together on the issue. In the same Fortune interview, Altman pointed to OpenAI’s corporate governance split between non-profit and for-profit entities, saying “We need to be able to make decisions that are not obviously in the interest of our business and our shareholders for the responsibility of fulfilling our mission.” HuffPost’s Reuters-cited account said growing numbers of U.S. lawmakers are calling for new rules to govern AI systems after the Anthropic warnings about extinction risk.
The reporting also described a June New York Times account that OpenAI, based in San Francisco, was considering postponing an IPO that could value it at $1 trillion, with SpaceX shares tumbling after a surge that sent SpaceX’s valuation to $1.8 trillion. Against that backdrop, the Reuters-cited timeline for Anthropic’s IPO—mid-October marketing and completion before the U.S. midterm elections in November—set a near-term contrast to OpenAI’s stated “not 2026” position.