Altman Rules Out an OpenAI Listing in 2026 and Blames Safety, Not Markets

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman told Fortune that an OpenAI initial public offering will not happen this year, saying that "given everything happening with safety, right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public," and that the company feels no pressure to list. Fortune's follow-up on 15 September reported that the window has moved to 2027 and that market conditions are not the reason. Russian-language coverage of the interview emphasized Altman's argument that quarterly public-market pressure is incompatible with the control work that building highly capable systems requires.

Investor Michael Burry put the opposite construction on the same facts, arguing in comments circulated by AI Post that OpenAI and Anthropic are manufacturing safety alarm because growth is slowing, that competitors are narrowing the gap with the incumbents, and that an eventual offering needs a supporting narrative. Burry also disputed the premise itself, saying large language models are not on a path to general intelligence, so there is nothing to slow down.

Neither claim is checkable from outside. OpenAI does not publish audited revenue or margin, so "slow growth" is an inference, and "safety" is a stated motive that also happens to postpone the disclosure a listing would force. What is verifiable is the structural consequence: the largest private AI companies keep funding themselves through private rounds and compute arrangements with vendors, which means public investors reach the frontier only through Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle and other listed suppliers, and price AI exposure off those balance sheets rather than the labs' own.