Chapter 1
A frontier AI lab's listing would put its audited accounts on the…
A frontier AI lab's listing would put its audited accounts on the public record for the first time. The process opened in June 2026. Anthropic said on 1 June that it had confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the SEC, and OpenAI said the same a week later. A confidential submission is not a prospectus: neither company disclosed financials, a share count, a price range or a timetable, and OpenAI added that a listing 'may be a while'.
Chapter 2
Since then almost everything known about the offerings has come from…
Since then almost everything known about the offerings has come from documents the public cannot read. In August the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar, that Anthropic would tell IPO investors its potential revenue opportunity exceeded $30 trillion, and that it could seek as much as $100 billion at about a $2 trillion valuation. The comparison it invites is SpaceX, which listed in June at $1.77 trillion after showing investors a $28.5 trillion opportunity of its own, and whose shares trade below their offer price. A search of the SEC's records at the end of August found no public Anthropic registration statement, only investment vehicles holding its stock. In early September Reuters reported that the prospectus, expected to go public in the week of 7 September, had slipped to late September, with the listing planned for the days before the November midterms.
Chapter 3
In late September Reuters reported the contents of the confidential…
In late September Reuters reported the contents of the confidential prospectus it had seen: 2025 revenue of about $4.6 billion, an operating loss of $8.06 billion and a net loss of about $42 billion, with about a quarter of revenue from two customers the document does not name. The same document, as reported, commits Anthropic to at least $518 billion of spending over a decade with six partners, about 80 per cent of it non-cancellable or payable regardless of use. None of these figures is filed, and the reporting that could be read does not explain the gap between the two losses.
Chapter 4
OpenAI has said in public that it is in no hurry
OpenAI has said in public that it is in no hurry. Sam Altman told Fortune in September that listing now would be 'ill-advised' given safety concerns and that the company would not list in 2026, though its chief financial officer had told staff it would be public in 2027. Anthropic held a pre-IPO investor day on 14 October and showed prospective investors figures it has not filed; afterwards some were reportedly weighing a valuation of about $1.5 trillion rather than $2 trillion. For four months, every number about either company was something someone had seen or been told.
Chapter 5
That changed on 26 October 2026
That changed on 26 October 2026, when Anthropic filed its registration statement in public, the first frontier lab to do so. The figures filed under legal liability bore out the ones reporters had described from drafts. 2025 revenue was $4.59 billion, with a net loss of about $41.9 billion. First-half 2026 revenue was $16.29 billion, with a loss of $80.7 billion, most of it accounting charges on convertible notes rather than cash spent. The filing also shows how far ahead the company has committed itself: $265.6 billion of purchases it cannot cancel and $321.4 billion of leases at the end of June, mostly for computing. Its governance has no direct precedent among listed companies, by its own account: a company of the seven co-founders holds a majority of the votes, and Amazon’s large stake carries none. What remains open is what the market will pay, and whether the most recent quarter, left blank in the first filing, bears out what investors were told in private. OpenAI has filed nothing in public and has said it will not list before 2027.
And now
Anthropic’s books are public. On October 26 it filed its registration statement with the SEC. It plans to list Class A shares on Nasdaq under the symbol ANT, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley leading 23 underwriters. No share count or price range is set yet, and reporters expect a listing in mid-to-late November.
The filed figures match what reporters had seen in drafts. Revenue was $4.59 billion in 2025, and $16.29 billion in the first half of 2026, up from $1.16 billion. The first-half net loss was $80.7 billion, about $72 billion of it non-cash charges on convertible notes. The third quarter is blank, so the figures Anthropic gave investors privately for it remain unfiled.
The filing also puts numbers on the obligations: $265.6 billion of purchases it cannot cancel at June 30, and $321.4 billion of leases. A company of its seven co-founders will hold 50.1 per cent of the votes.
OpenAI has filed nothing in public. An SEC search on October 29 found no registration statement from it.
Where it stands today →