OpenAI joins the race for record-breaking IPOs: here is the confidential prospectus

SpaceX will be the first to go public on Wall Street, on the Nasdaq, with the listing now just around the corner on Friday 12 June. Musk’s aim is to raise a record $75 billion at a valuation of nearly $1.8 trillion. Investor demand appears strong, but so do the risks: SpaceX burns through huge amounts of capital, has demonstrated a murky financial structure with substantial transactions with other parts of Musk’s empire, and equally opaque governance, with Musk retaining control of around 85% of the voting rights.

Revenue is primarily generated by the Starlink communications satellite network, rather than by the more high-profile businesses of space rockets and AI. The key lies in huge federal contracts, which, however, are themselves the subject of debate with the Pentagon, US intelligence and the national security apparatus, as it has sometimes emerged that they were specifically designed to favour the company.

It also remains to be seen how it will perform on Wall Street – and beyond – on its debut: many analysts are predicting a traditional rise on the first day of trading. Musk has opted to set a fixed share price of $135, rather than specifying a traditional price range. In the longer term, however, the outcome for SPX is still up in the air, with last-minute investors – that is, those buying at the end of the session who did not have access to the initial pricing – potentially finding themselves out of pocket.

The Wall Street Journal has highlighted that, over a three-year period, IPOs on average underperform a weighted market index by 21%. In short, they certainly make only a few people rich; in the case of SpaceX, this includes a number of employees, early investors and top executives of the group (Musk aims to become the world’s first trillionaire).

Anthropic, led by Dario Amodei, is now approaching a valuation of one trillion and is aiming for a potential listing in October, having surpassed

to OpenAI in terms of innovation, with its Claude model, as well as in submitting a confidential prospectus to the authorities for its listing. Amodei has, moreover, sought so far to present his company as pursuing a different strategy, one characterised by a more cautious approach to risks and a greater focus on business. An approach that has caused tensions with the Trump administration, although these were subsequently followed by efforts to improve relations.