Altman tells Fortune OpenAI will not go public in 2026

OpenAI will not go public this year, the company's chief executive Sam Altman said in an interview released on Saturday, citing safety concerns over artificial intelligence.

"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 business magazine on Friday.

"I would say not 2026, yeah. We got a lot of stuff to do," he said when asked if an initial public offering (IPO) was off the table for 2026.

The company had not announced an official date for its IPO.

OpenAI and its rival Anthropic have been racing to become public companies.

Both companies have filed confidential IPO documents with US regulators and are targeting public listings at valuations approaching $1 trillion.