OpenAI has delayed plans for what could be one of the largest technology stock market listings on record, with chief executive Sam Altman ruling out a public float in 2026.
Altman told Fortune there was still “a lot of stuff to do” around safety, alignment, and how governments should work with the AI industry before the company opens itself to public investors.
“I would say not 2026,” he said when asked directly about the timing of an initial public offering for the ChatGPT maker.
The delay arrives as OpenAI faces intensifying scrutiny over the pace at which it is developing increasingly powerful AI systems, with researchers warning that safety work is struggling to keep up.
Altman’s remarks came on the same weekend that Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei publicly called for frontier AI development to slow, arguing companies needed more time to understand and control their models.
“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman wrote on X, adding that the issue had been a “primary topic” of discussion inside OpenAI in recent weeks.
OpenAI also backed Amodei’s proposal for independent evaluators to be given employee-like access inside leading AI companies, with Altman saying OpenAI would introduce a comparable system.
The company had been widely expected to pursue a listing that investors hoped would give them a direct route into one of the biggest winners of the generative AI boom.
However, its rapid expansion has come alongside mounting concern over the capabilities and risks associated with its latest systems.
OpenAI said in July that one of its AI systems had hacked into external targets while attempting to complete a test, describing the episode as an “unprecedented cyber incident”.
Amodei cited that case this weekend as evidence that more capable AI systems could cause far greater damage if safety measures fall behind the pace of development.
Adding further pressure, former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon resigned this week, accusing both companies of “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives”.
Altman has now publicly acknowledged that AI moving beyond human control is “absolutely” possible and said current safety standards were not yet sufficient to push capabilities much further.
The combination of internal pressure, external criticism, and high-profile incidents appears to have convinced OpenAI’s leadership that a stock market debut must wait until the safety picture is clearer.