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What’s fueling AI companies’ IPO rush

Three leading AI companies are racing to go public this year. It might not be good news for consumers.

Welcome to the era of the big three.

We’re not talking rappers here — although according to Kendrick Lamar, it’s “just big me” — we’re talking AI companies: Anthropic, SpaceX, and OpenAI.

These three leading artificial intelligence companies are all expected to go public this year. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which recently acquired another Musk company, xAi, is on track to open up to investors later this month. Anthropic, the company behind the chatbot Claude, just filed confidentially with the States Securities and Exchange Commission for its own initial public offering. Reports say OpenAI could also go public as soon as September. (Disclosure: Vox Media is one of several publishers that have signed partnership agreements with OpenAI. Our reporting remains editorially independent.)

SpaceX’s IPO, when it happens, could be the largest in history and mint Musk as the world’s first trillionaire. With Anthropic and OpenAI, the combined value of AI IPOs could total over $3 trillion.

But it’s not as simple as going public and raking in cash. “There’s this race that’s been going on between SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic,” Liz Lopatto, a senior writer at The Verge said. “There’s this fear that if you don’t go public at the right time or you don’t go public first, investors aren’t going to wait for you.”

To understand why some of the world’s richest men, at the helm of some of the world’s richest companies, are now courting the public’s money, Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Lopatto.

She’s been deep in SpaceX’s public filings and has been covering the court drama between Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Her latest piece for the Verge is titled “The SpaceX IPO is great for Elon Musk and terrible for you.”

Sean and Lopatto chat about what each of the companies hope to gain from the public, why this moment could be like internet 1.0’s dot-com bubble, and whether these companies chasing shareholder profits will be good for us.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple........

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