Will an OpenAI IPO Launch It Into the Trillion-Dollar Club?

Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia… the trillion-dollar club already has its VIP members sipping champagne behind the velvet rope. The next big question is: will an OpenAI IPO be the ticket that gets it inside?

With private deals already valuing OpenAI at around US$500 billion — including SoftBank, UAE-based MGX, and others spending $6.6 billion scooping up employee shares — the next logical step is to go public and see if Wall Street can double down. Private markets are just the pre-party; the real dance floor, with liquidity, hype, and ticker symbols, is the IPO stage — and that’s where valuations leap from “impressive” to “are you serious?”

For OpenAI, going public isn’t just a possibility — it’s practically inevitable:

• ‍Cash-Out Time – Employees and early investors can’t buy yachts with paper stock. Liquidity matters.
• ‍Fuel for the Future – Training cutting-edge AI models costs billions in GPUs and data centers. A public listing opens the firehose of capital.

So will OpenAI’s IPO put it in the trillion-dollar club? Nobody can guarantee it, but history suggests that when tech companies capture cultural dominance, markets tend to add zeros first and ask questions later.   

One thing’s certain: if OpenAI does ring the bell, the after-party will be epic.