OpenAI CFO privately questioned the timing of the 2026 IPO, and Altman excluded him from key financial meetings.

ME News report, April 6 (UTC+8). According to market sources, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman privately stated this year that he hopes the company can complete an IPO as early as the fourth quarter. CFO Sarah Friar has told several colleagues that she believes the company is not yet ready to list in 2026, citing factors including the workload of the required processes and organizational work, as well as financial risks brought by high-value commitments to procure computing power. Internally, Altman has repeatedly excluded Friar from financial decision-making. In recent months, when he discussed server procurement with a top-tier investor, he did not invite Friar. One attendee described her absence as “noticeable and awkward,” and therefore she had participated in meetings on the same topic earlier.

Since August last year, Friar no longer reports directly to Altman; instead, she reports to Fidji Simo, head of the application business, breaking the usual practice in large companies where CFOs report directly to the CEO. Financially, OpenAI has committed to investing more than $600 billion in cloud servers over the next five years. Internal forecasts predict that more than $200 billion in cash will be consumed before achieving positive cash flow. The $122 billion funding commitment announced this week mainly comes from Amazon and Nvidia—both of which are also OpenAI’s cloud server and chip suppliers—forming a circular capital arrangement. Anthropic has surpassed OpenAI to become the preferred AI model in the enterprise and developer market, and OpenAI’s revenue growth has also been slowing.

Initial preparations for going public have quietly begun: OpenAI has engaged the law firms Cooley and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, and has held preliminary discussions with the IPO teams of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Altman privately stated that he hopes to go public earlier than Anthropic, which is currently discussing an IPO plan for this fourth quarter. The two executives later issued a joint statement saying they are “fully aligned on compute strategy.” (Source: ChainCatcher)