Sam Altman Rules Out OpenAI IPO in 2026, Citing AI Safety Concerns as Altman, Amodei and Musk Call for Slowdown

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed in a Fortune interview published Saturday that the company will not go public in 2026, calling an IPO at this moment "ill-advised" given escalating concerns about artificial intelligence safety. "I would say not 2026," Altman said, adding that the company has "a lot of stuff to do" to meet the demands of safety and alignment. OpenAI had previously filed confidentially for an IPO, and markets had widely expected a potentially trillion-dollar offering this year.

The announcement landed against a backdrop of broader industry alarm. Altman earlier in the day backed a proposal from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calling for companies to slow AI development while regulations and safety protocols catch up. Elon Musk also voiced agreement. Amodei separately published an essay and announced that Anthropic is committing to a new safety measure: giving independent evaluators permanent, employee-level access inside the company. The moment came after an Anthropic researcher publicly quit this week, setting off a firestorm on social media over AI development pace.

Altman told OpenAI employees earlier this week that the company was open to slowing development of its most advanced AI systems and hoped peer labs would do the same, according to Bloomberg. OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki also called on companies in the field to coordinate on safety. Altman and Amodei are both scheduled to speak at the Salesforce Dreamforce conference in San Francisco next week, where the pressure to articulate a unified safety posture is likely to intensify.

The delay leaves the anticipated IPO race between OpenAI and Anthropic in limbo. Analysts had argued OpenAI needed to go public in 2026 to capture peak market enthusiasm, and the postponement pushes any offering to 2027 at the earliest.