Elon Musk is set to become the world's first trillionaire after SpaceX shares began trading on the US stock exchange, marking what could be the largest initial public offering in history. The rocket company, targeting a share price that values it at $1.75tn (£1.3tn), debuted on the Nasdaq on Friday, joining a wave of heavyweight listings that includes two of the biggest names in artificial intelligence.
Just a week before SpaceX's debut, rival AI firm Anthropic revealed plans to go public. Now OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has followed suit, filing a confidential IPO prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. OpenAI said it had not decided on timing, adding: "It may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company." The company also said it was revealing its plans because "we expect it to leak".
“SpaceX shares debut on Nasdaq as OpenAI and Anthropic race to go public, with Elon Musk set to become world's first trillionaire.”
The three firms all have a "vast need for cash", according to Sunil Krishnan from Aviva Investors. "No-one wants to be last," he told the BBC's Today programme, pointing to the huge investments in AI infrastructure, including chips and training models, that come at massive expense.
OpenAI and Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, have been fierce rivals since Dario Amodei co-founded the latter company five years ago after leaving OpenAI over disagreements with Sam Altman, the co-founder and chief executive of OpenAI. Today they compete for users, corporate customers and investors, jockeying with private valuations inching toward $1tn. OpenAI's most recent valuation from private investors was $852bn; Anthropic's reached $965bn.
Now the race is on to see which AI company will debut on the public stock market first. Neither has said exactly when. Investors are closely tracking the listings, as their performance will shape expectations for others, said assistant professor Richard Crowley from the Singapore Management University. "We might typically think of OpenAI and Anthropic as competitors, but the fate of their financing is intrinsically intertwined through the public's perception of the generative AI space," he said.
Last week, Altman told CNBC he was in no rush to take OpenAI public, and would do it "when it makes sense". With SpaceX already trading and the AI giants jostling for position, the race for public markets is heating up — and no one wants to be last.