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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has ruled out an initial public offering in 2026, saying the company needs more time to work on AI safety and alignment. His comments come months after OpenAI submitted a confidential draft S-1 for a possible public listing. Altman said the company does not feel pressure to enter the public market this year.
Altman told Fortune that going public now would be an ‘ill-advised moment' because of current safety concerns around advanced AI systems. He said OpenAI wants to remain able to make decisions that may not always match the short-term interests of investors or future public shareholders. Remaining private, he said, gives the company more room to focus on its mission while it addresses those issues.
When asked whether the IPO could move to 2027, Altman said only that it would not happen in 2026. He said OpenAI still has ‘a lot of stuff to do' on safety, alignment and coordination with governments. The company has not announced a new target date. Therefore, a 2027 listing remains possible but unconfirmed.
OpenAI has faced growing attention over how advanced AI models behave and how companies test them before release. Altman said the company may need to pause at certain stages of model development so researchers can improve safeguards before pushing capabilities further. He also said AI companies and governments should work together as systems become more capable.
OpenAI said on June 8 that it had confidentially submitted a draft S-1 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. At the time, the company said it had not decided when to go public and noted that some work could be easier to complete while it remained private. Altman’s latest comments narrow that timeline by taking 2026 off the table.
The OpenAI decision comes as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for a slower pace in advanced AI development. In a recent essay, Amodei wrote, “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” arguing that safety work needs time to catch up with faster advances. He said the approach would not mean stopping technical progress.
Amodei proposed stronger outside evaluation, more coordination among leading AI companies and wider government cooperation. Altman has voiced support for the broader idea of pacing development.
Elon Musk has also backed the call for more caution as developers build more capable systems. The debate has added attention to how AI companies balance product development with safety controls.
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Investor Michael Burry has challenged the motives behind the calls for slower AI development. In a post on X, he described the position from OpenAI and Anthropic as ‘self-serving' and linked it to publicity around possible IPOs.
He also wrote that ‘IPOs need hype & puffery,’ questioning whether the safety message also serves a business purpose.
Burry argued that large language models do not amount to artificial general intelligence and said the slowdown message could also reflect weaker growth. His comments remain his own assessment. OpenAI and Anthropic have framed their public statements around safety concerns, while Altman has said that it will not pursue an IPO in 2026.
