OpenAI is reportedly facing a high-stakes internal debate over two of the biggest decisions a fast-growing AI company can make: when to go public and how aggressively to spend on the infrastructure needed to power its models.
According to Reuters, citing a report from The Information, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar has raised concerns about CEO Sam Altman’s goal of pursuing an initial public offering as early as the fourth quarter of 2026. The same reporting says Friar also questioned the scale of OpenAI’s planned outlays, which could reach as much as $600 billion over the next five years.
The heart of the disagreement appears to be a practical question of readiness versus ambition. The report says Friar told some colleagues earlier this year that OpenAI may not be prepared for a 2026 IPO, pointing to the substantial organizational and procedural work that typically needs to be completed before a company can list its shares publicly. In other words, the issue isn’t only whether an IPO is desirable, but whether the timeline is realistic given what still needs to be built internally.
Spending is the other pressure point. Reuters’ summary of the report says Friar questioned whether OpenAI truly needs to spend at such an immense level on AI servers and data center capacity in the coming years. She also reportedly raised concerns about whether revenue growth—especially if it slows—would be strong enough to justify and sustain those commitments.
The report frames Altman as pushing an aggressive timetable for a public debut, while Friar is portrayed as urging caution on both timing and the financial risk of locking in massive infrastructure spending too far ahead of demand. It also notes that OpenAI would be planning to fund data center buildouts in advance to secure capacity it expects to need.
Reuters added additional financial context, reporting that OpenAI recently closed a funding round with $122 billion in committed capital and assigning the company a reported valuation of $852 billion. Reuters also cited The Information for another eye-catching figure: OpenAI is said to be generating around $2 billion in revenue per month.
Despite the attention the report has sparked, there’s an important caveat: OpenAI has not confirmed the IPO timeline described. Reuters said it could not independently verify the details, and that OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. That leaves the claims about a 2026 IPO target and the full magnitude of the spending plan in the realm of third-party reporting rather than official company guidance.
What is clear, though, is that OpenAI remains in an intense investment phase where access to computing power and infrastructure can determine how quickly products scale and how competitive the underlying AI models remain. Recent reports also indicate OpenAI has been reshuffling parts of its leadership team, underscoring that the organization is evolving quickly as it handles rapid growth, high operational demands, and major strategic decisions.
For now, the clearest takeaway from the reporting is this: OpenAI’s leadership is reportedly weighing an ambitious IPO timeline against the realities of company readiness and the sustainability of massive long-term AI infrastructure spending—two factors that could shape the company’s future as much as the technology itself.
