Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said he has “0%” excitement about being the chief executive of a public company even as signs point to the fast-growing artificial intelligence firm preparing for a potential initial public offering, highlighting a broader tension between Silicon Valley’s need for capital and the increased scrutiny that comes with public markets.

By | Updated Dec. 19, 2025

Public markets are seen as a key source of capital for rapidly scaling AI companies, but they also bring heavier regulation and shareholder scrutiny. (Image: Unsplash)

Altman: “0%” Excitement About Being a Public Company CEO

Speaking on an episode of the “Big Technology Podcast” published Thursday, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman described his mixed feelings about the prospect of OpenAI going public.

“Am I excited for OpenAI to be a public company? In some ways, I am, and in some ways I think it’d be really annoying,” Altman said.

Altman made a clear distinction between his view of OpenAI listing its shares and his personal interest in running a publicly traded firm.

“Am I excited to be a public company CEO? 0%,” he added.

The comments underscore longstanding concerns among some technology founders that quarterly earnings pressure and activist investors can conflict with longer-term research and product roadmaps, particularly in capital-intensive fields such as artificial intelligence.


Capital Needs Push OpenAI Toward Public Markets

Despite his reluctance to lead a public company, Altman acknowledged that OpenAI’s growth ambitions will likely require access to public capital. “It’s wonderful to be a private company,” he said, but added that OpenAI needs “lots of capital” and is going to “cross all of the shareholder limits and stuff at some point.”

The reference to shareholder limits alludes to U.S. securities rules that can compel a company to disclose more information, or eventually go public, once it exceeds certain thresholds for the number of shareholders or outstanding shares. While private companies can raise substantial sums through venture capital, strategic investors, and secondary share sales, an IPO often becomes a practical step once the investor base grows large and complex.

Altman also framed a potential listing as a way to broaden who can benefit financially from OpenAI’s rise. “I do think it’s cool that public markets get to participate in value creation,” he said, suggesting that opening the shareholder base beyond large private funds could fit with OpenAI’s positioning as an organization focused on widely distributed AI benefits.


Explosive Growth: From Research Lab to Multi-Hundred-Billion-Dollar Valuation

OpenAI was founded in 2015 by Altman and eleven other cofounders as a research-oriented AI organization. Since the public release of its chatbot ChatGPT in 2022, the company’s prominence and valuation have surged, helping to catalyze what many analysts describe as an “AI arms race” among major technology firms.

According to figures cited in the interview and prior reporting, ChatGPT has reached around 800 million weekly users, a scale that has driven demand for the company’s underlying models and cloud services. OpenAI has also announced large-scale partnerships reportedly worth around $1 trillion in aggregate deal value with hardware and cloud providers including Oracle, Nvidia, and AMD, aimed at securing the computing infrastructure required to train and serve advanced AI systems.

In October, a secondary share sale valued OpenAI at about $500 billion, briefly making it the world’s most valuable private company and placing it ahead of Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, according to reporting by Reuters and other outlets. SpaceX has since regained that distinction following additional private transactions.

On Wednesday, technology industry publication The Information reported that OpenAI is seeking to raise billions more at a valuation of around $750 billion, citing people familiar with the matter. If completed, such a deal would put OpenAI in the same valuation tier as the largest publicly traded U.S. technology companies, despite its continuing status as a private firm.


Signals of a Possible OpenAI IPO

There have been growing indications that OpenAI is preparing for a possible initial public offering. In October, Reuters reported that the company was considering filing with securities regulators as soon as the second half of 2026, according to unnamed sources.

When asked on the podcast whether OpenAI would IPO next year, Altman replied, “I don’t know,” emphasizing that any move to list would not be rushed. “We will be very late to go public,” he said, implying that the company intends to remain private longer than many high-growth technology firms have in the past.

An eventual IPO would be shaped not only by capital needs but also by regulatory and governance questions. OpenAI operates a hybrid structure that combines a non-profit parent with a for-profit arm, designed in part to cap investor returns while prioritizing broader safety and societal objectives. How that structure would be perceived by public-market investors and regulators remains a subject of industry debate.


Debate Over Public Listings for AI Leaders

Altman’s lack of enthusiasm about being a public company CEO reflects a wider discussion within the technology sector about the trade-offs between staying private and entering public markets, particularly for companies working on foundational AI systems.

  • Supporters of an OpenAI IPO argue that public listing would increase transparency around the company’s financial performance, risk management, and AI safety practices, giving regulators, researchers, and the public clearer insight into a firm whose technologies are increasingly embedded in education, business, and government services.
  • Critics of early listing warn that quarterly earnings pressure could encourage aggressive product rollout and cost-cutting at the expense of careful evaluation of AI risks, including bias, misuse, and potential security vulnerabilities.

Some corporate governance experts say a well-designed board structure, dual-class share arrangements, or explicit mission charters can help reconcile market expectations with long-term AI safety goals. Others counter that any public company, regardless of structure, remains ultimately accountable to shareholders seeking financial returns, which could complicate commitments such as OpenAI’s stated aim to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits “all of humanity.”



Historical Context: Tech Giants, IPOs, and AI Investment

The debate over OpenAI’s future ownership structure comes after two decades in which public markets have played a central role in financing large-scale computing and AI research. Companies such as Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta used IPO proceeds and subsequent stock issuance to fund data centers, specialized chips, and research teams, establishing the infrastructure foundation on which today’s generative AI models are built.

More recently, some high-profile startups have delayed or reconsidered IPOs, citing volatile markets and a desire to preserve long-term product focus. SpaceX, which briefly trailed OpenAI in private valuation before retaking the top spot, has repeatedly postponed public offerings, instead raising capital through private markets and secondary share sales for employees and early investors.

For AI companies specifically, the cost of computing hardware—particularly GPUs and specialized accelerators—has made access to large pools of capital a key competitive factor. Public listings can unlock that capital, but they also subject AI developers to securities laws, disclosure obligations, and increased oversight from regulators concerned about issues ranging from data privacy to workforce impact and national security.


Outlook: Late to Go Public, But Under Growing Scrutiny

Altman’s remarks suggest that OpenAI intends to postpone an IPO for as long as practical while continuing to raise large sums privately and expand its commercial partnerships. At the same time, rising valuations, a widening shareholder base, and the central role its models play across industries are likely to intensify calls from regulators, policymakers, and some investors for greater transparency.

Whether OpenAI ultimately chooses to list on a public exchange, and under what governance structure, is expected to shape not only its own trajectory but also broader norms for how frontier AI research and deployment are financed and overseen. For now, Altman’s insistence that his enthusiasm for being a public company CEO is “0%” highlights the unresolved tension between building powerful AI systems at scale and operating under the constraints of public markets.