OpenAI won't go public this year

Wall Street will have to wait for one of the most highly anticipated initial public offerings as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed it will not happen in 2026.

In an exclusive interview with Fortune on Friday, he pointed out that the company has long maintained it’s not in a hurry to rush ahead with an IPO.

“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 told Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell.

He added that OpenAI will go public when the business is ready and when the company is ready as it relates to “what the moment is like in society with this technology.”

When pressed on whether 2026 is off the table in favor of 2027, Altman replied, “I would say not 2026. Yeah, we got a lot of stuff to do, like meeting this moment of what is going to be required for safety and alignment, and how the industry and governments can work together.”

In June, the New York Times reported that OpenAI was leaning toward pushing back its IPO, which that could value it at $1 trillion, from this year to next year. A top consideration at the time was the SpaceX IPO that raised $85 billion Elon Musk’s rocket and AI company.