SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic IPOs: AI's Reckoning

SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are all targeting IPOs within weeks of each other, with a combined raise of roughly $180 billion—more than the entire dot-com bubble raised across three years. On the same day Anthropic filed, Google raised $80 billion in outside capital to fund its own AI build-out, with Berkshire Hathaway writing a $10 billion check. The scale is unprecedented, and the rules protecting ordinary retirement investors are being rewritten to accommodate it.

Why all three are going public now

The core driver is simple: the AI infrastructure build-out has become far more expensive than any of these companies anticipated, and they have run out of private capital. Up until now, they funded data centers and GPUs through revenue and private investment. Now they are turning to public markets because they need more money to train frontier models and serve exploding demand. As one host put it, "there is no going back after this. We are jumping into the abyss."

SpaceX filed its S-1 on April 1 and is rumored to target an IPO in June or early July. OpenAI filed confidentially ten days ago. Anthropic filed its own confidential S-1 yesterday. All three are aiming for Q4 at the latest. The combined $180 billion raise exceeds the $164 billion raised during the entire dot-com bubble across three years.

Index funds are being forced in