Sam Altman, Chief of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI during a recent podcast interview did not confirm reports about OpenAI's likely fundraise or future listing plans but noted that he is “0% excited” to be the CEO of a public company, as it would “in some ways be annoying”.
Speaking to host Alex Kantrowitz on the ‘Big Technology Podcast’, Sam Altman responded to a question about how he would feel leading the listed company. “Am I excited to be a public company CEO? 0%. 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,” he stated.
Will OpenAI go for public listing?
The topic came up for discussion amid multiple reports by the Wall Street Journal and Reuters on OpenAI building towards an IPO in late 2026- early 2027, that would value the artificial intelligence (AI) technology company up to $1 trillion.
Answering questions on the possible public listing, Sam Altman told Kantrowitz he did not know if the ChatGPT maker will go for an IPO in 2026. He similarly did not confirm reports of the company being in talks for “tens of billions of dollars” from investors at a valuation of $750 billion, as per The Information.
Fortune reported that OpenAI did not respond to its queries on the matter.
Sam Altman on markets, capital requirement
Sam Altman however added that it is “cool” how public markets can participate in value creation. He added that OpenAI is a capital-intensive company and needs “lots” to compete in the AI race.
He said, “I do think it’s cool that public markets get to participate in value creation. And in some sense, we will be very late to go public if you look at any previous company. It’s wonderful to be a private company. We need lots of capital. We’re going to cross all of the shareholder limits and stuff at some point.”
OpenAI has recently pivoted from being non-profit to for-profit in a restructuring that gave the non-profit that controls the company holds $130 billion worth of stake, and Microsoft a reduced 27% stake in the company, besides increased access to OpenAI's research. The ChatGPT maker is now also free to work with other cloud computing platforms besides the Windows maker.
OpenAI's ‘code red’, Sam Altman says “good to be paranoid”
Addressing the ‘Code Red’ called by OpenAI amid increasing competition, Sam Altman said that this is a continuous process. “I think that it’s good to be paranoid and act quickly when a potential competitive threat emerges. This happened to us in the past. That happened earlier this year with DeepSeek. And there was a code red back then, too,” he stated.
“My guess is we’ll be doing these once, maybe twice a year, for a long time, and that’s part of really just making sure that we win in our space. A lot of other companies will do great too, and I’m happy for them,” he added.
Earlier echoing similar thoughts, OpenAI's Chief Research Officer Mark Chen told Bloomberg in an interview that the company often calls for code red “when we want to have this focusing effort on one particular topic”.
WATCH: Sam Altman on OpenAI IPO in 2026 and more
(With inputs from Agencies)