OpenAI may be willing to wait an extra year for a public listing if that is what it takes to chase a $1 trillion valuation, and that stance is already rippling through one of its biggest backers. According to The New York Times, the company is now considering pushing its IPO to 2027 rather than accepting a lower price tag, even as growth cools, losses continue, and the AI market starts asking harder questions about valuations that once felt untouchable.
The trade-off is blunt: go public earlier at a more modest number, or stay private longer and try to land the kind of debut that would make Wall Street swallow its own tongue. OpenAI’s last private valuation was about $730 billion, so the jump to $1 trillion is not exactly pocket change. But in a market where even giant tech listings can lose altitude fast, waiting may be the safer ego move.
Why OpenAI is leaning toward a 2027 IPO
Sources cited by the newspaper say advisers gave OpenAI two broad options: list in 2027 and preserve the trillion-dollar ambition, or list sooner and accept a lower valuation. Sam Altman reportedly rejected the second path. That is a familiar Silicon Valley move: delay the awkward math and hope the next funding cycle looks more flattering than the current one.
The company also has a market example sitting in plain sight. SpaceX’s recent offering pulled in more than $85 billion and briefly valued the company at $1.77 trillion on day one, but the stock later slid from a peak of $202 to around $153. For OpenAI, that kind of whiplash is a warning sign, not a victory lap.
Revenue is rising, losses are still here
OpenAI generated about $13 billion in revenue in 2025 and expects to triple that figure this year. The catch is that the business is still burning cash, largely because it is building its own computing infrastructure and data centers to train and run its AI models. That is the classic AI paradox: fast growth, huge bills, and no patience from investors once the bill comes due.
- 2025 revenue: about $13 billion
- Expected revenue growth this year: roughly three times 2025
- Last private valuation: about $730 billion
- Target IPO valuation: $1 trillion
SoftBank gets hit first
The rumor mill did not wait for a prospectus. SoftBank, one of OpenAI’s biggest investors, saw its shares fall 13% in a single day after reports of the possible delay. That was its steepest drop since August 2024. By October 2026, SoftBank’s total investment in OpenAI is expected to reach about $65 billion, so the market has a pretty obvious reason to care: the sooner OpenAI has a public price, the sooner SoftBank can point to a mark on paper instead of a private-market estimate.
OpenAI’s push into enterprise products adds another layer to the story. The company has reportedly trimmed some side projects, including Sora, and put more weight on tools like Codex, which competes with Anthropic’s Claude Code. Sources say weekly users of Codex have climbed to more than four million, up fivefold in just three months. That is the kind of growth story investors like; whether it is enough to justify a trillion-dollar float is a different question entirely.
OpenAI IPO valuation test
If the IPO really moves to 2027, the real test will not be whether OpenAI can go public. It will be whether public investors are still willing to pay for AI optimism at full price while the company remains unprofitable and competition keeps getting sharper. The answer could shape not just OpenAI’s debut, but the valuation playbook for the rest of the sector.