SpaceX Roadshow as Early as June, OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs in Second Half, Three Giants May Drain 2026 AI IPO Demand

SpaceX’s IPO plans are progressing at a breakneck pace. On the evening of April 6 ET, SpaceX disclosed a detailed roadmap during an online meeting with its banking team: the IPO roadshow is slated for the week of June 8, followed by a major event for 1,500 retail investors on June 11. The company expects to publish its IPO prospectus in late May.

In terms of fundraising, SpaceX aims to raise approximately $75 billion through this IPO, targeting a valuation of up to $1.75 trillion—a significant leap from the $1.25 trillion valuation established during its merger with xAI in February. Axios previously reported that the scale of this single SpaceX deal could exceed the total proceeds of all U.S. IPOs in 2024 and 2025 combined.

SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen stated during the meeting: “Retail investors will be a key part of this IPO, representing a larger share than in any previous IPO.” Musk wants to reserve up to 30% of the offering for retail investors, whereas the industry norm is typically 5% to 10%. This unprecedented arrangement is both a “reward” to Musk’s long-term supporters and a “strategic positioning” to absorb massive market liquidity.

By early 2026, SpaceX generated revenue of approximately $15 billion to $16 billion, with profits of about $8 billion. Its core assets have evolved from its origins as a rocket launch firm into the “Musk Universe” conglomerate, spanning the Starlink satellite network, Starship rockets, and xAI artificial intelligence.

Compared to SpaceX’s clear timeline, the IPO schedules for OpenAI and Anthropic remain fluid, though their listing windows overlap significantly.

OpenAI plans to conduct its IPO as early as the fourth quarter of 2026, targeting a valuation of approximately $1 trillion. Just days ago, OpenAI completed an unprecedented private funding round totaling $122 billion, bringing its post-money valuation to $852 billion—the largest single private financing in Silicon Valley history.

However, internal divisions exist between OpenAI’s CEO and CFO regarding the timing of the listing. CFO Sarah Friar believes the company is not yet ready to go public and has expressed reservations about a massive $600 billion spending plan over the next five years. Bloomberg reports that OpenAI’s influence in the secondary market is waning, with one firm stating that after contacting hundreds of institutions, “not a single one was willing to buy OpenAI.”

Anthropic plans to go public as early as October, aiming to raise over $60 billion in what would be the world’s second-largest IPO. After completing a $30 billion Series G round in February at a $380 billion valuation, its annualized revenue has surpassed $19 billion, and its enterprise LLM market share has reached 32%, overtaking OpenAI’s 25%.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley are expected to be the leading investment bank candidates to underwrite both companies.

Based on available data, the financing scale of these three companies has reached historic levels. SpaceX is at approximately $75 billion, OpenAI (whose financing could reach tens to hundreds of billions of dollars based on a $1 trillion valuation), and Anthropic exceeds $60 billion, with a total scale conservatively estimated at over $240 billion. In contrast, total fundraising in the U.S. IPO market for the entire year of 2025 was only about $45 billion. Axios pointed out that SpaceX’s fundraising alone could exceed the total of all U.S. IPOs over the past two years combined.

Even more concerning is the extreme concentration of the time window. SpaceX’s June roadshow, Anthropic’s October listing, and OpenAI’s fourth-quarter IPO mean that from June through the end of the year, global capital market liquidity will be continuously drained by these three ‘whales’.

Fortune magazine reported: ‘SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic could restart the IPO market, but they could also drain it dry.’

Data from Crunchbase shows that in the first quarter of 2026, global investors poured approximately $300 billion into roughly 6,000 startups, setting a single-quarter record in venture capital history. About 80% of global capital flowed into AI-related sectors, significantly higher than the approximately 50% recorded for the full year of 2025.

The “Big Three” have all recognized the same issue: institutional investors alone are unable to absorb such immense financing requirements.

Consequently, Musk plans to allocate 30% of SpaceX to retail investors, an unprecedented move in the history of IPOs.

Meanwhile, OpenAI is following suit. CFO Sarah Friar stated on April 9 that the company plans to set aside a portion of shares for retail investors in its IPO. In its recent private round, it has raised over $3 billion from individual investors, with demand described as “very strong.” Friar also revealed that the company’s initial target was only $1 billion, but the round was ultimately three times oversubscribed.

Anthropic has yet to announce a specific retail allocation plan, but given its similarly massive fundraising scale, tapping into retail investors is almost an inevitable choice.

For investors, several key indicators warrant close monitoring:

• SpaceX’s IPO pricing and post-listing performance will serve as a bellwether for the entire market. If SpaceX successfully lists at a valuation exceeding $1.75 trillion and achieves steady gains, it will clear valuation hurdles for the public debuts of OpenAI and Anthropic. Conversely, if SpaceX shares break their issue price or face a valuation haircut post-listing, the other two giants will encounter severe valuation pressure. Current sentiment suggests that SpaceX, buoyed by the ‘Musk halo effect,’ is highly likely to be embraced by the secondary market. However, investors must still cautiously observe whether the stock price is sustainable. Any frenzy severely decoupled from fundamentals would front-load growth expectations for years to come, undermining long-term price sustainability.
• Whether internal disagreements regarding OpenAI’s listing will be resolved in the coming months is critical. If the CFO’s prudent stance prevails, OpenAI’s IPO timeline could be pushed back to 2027, thereby creating more breathing room for the market’s IPO capacity.
• Divergence in preferences among institutional investors regarding the three companies is intensifying. Reports suggest some institutions have billions of dollars ready to purchase Anthropic shares, yet ‘not a single one is willing to buy OpenAI.’ Elon Musk remarked that he was not surprised. This divergence indicates that the three giants are not all ‘on the same playing field.’

2026 will mark the peak of the AI capital extravaganza and potentially a stress test for market resilience. As Gené Teare, head of research at Crunchbase, noted, the market is currently ‘between two worlds.’ The fault line between high-valuation SaaS-era unicorns and early-stage AI firms is being pushed toward a tipping point by these trillion-dollar IPOs.