Sam Altman said in a Sept. 12 interview with Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell that taking OpenAI public in 2026 would be "ill-advised." "I actually think that, given everything happening with safety, right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public, and we don't feel pressure on that," Altman said, according to Fortune.
Asked directly whether an IPO was coming this year, Altman said, "I would say not 2026, yeah. We've got a lot of stuff to do," according to TechCrunch.
OpenAI has filed confidentially for an IPO, but Altman said timing depends on both the business and the wider safety environment being ready, Fortune reported. He said OpenAI's nonprofit-over-for-profit structure exists specifically so the company can make decisions "not obviously in the interest of our business and our shareholders."
The comments came the same week Altman said he agreed with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's call to deliberately slow AI development, and after reports of AI agents attacking outside systems and a researcher's resignation over safety concerns.
A company that spent much of 2026 visibly prepping for an IPO just said not this year, in an interview, on the record. That is a stronger signal than the usual hedge, and it tells enterprise customers and competitors that OpenAI is not under near-term pressure to chase growth optics over the safety commitments it just made.