Issue No. 03 · June 10th, 2026 · Main Source: nytimes.com
OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX: Three Hot New Bombshells Have Entered the Wall Street Villa
Here's what you need to know this week, and why it matters.
You know that moment on Love Island when the doors open and three bombshells walk in at once and the whole villa loses its mind? Well, that is Wall Street right now.
OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX have all filed for IPOs within weeks of each other and these companies combined are valued at roughly $3.4 trillion in private markets. To put that in context, that is more than the entire GDP of France in 2024.
And not one of them is profitable. At least not yet.
That combination, huge valuations, almost no profit, and a race to go public all at the same time, is different from anything the markets have seen before. So let's talk about it.
If you have never heard of the term IPO before, let me first explain what it means. IPO stands for an initial public offering and it is when a private company sells shares of itself to the public for the first time. Before an IPO, only a small group of people can own parts of the company. These people tend to be the company's founders, early employees and private investors who got in before anyone else. After an IPO, anyone with a brokerage account can buy shares.
Think of it as the company finally letting the public into a party that has been invite only for years. Three companies are about to open their doors, one after the other. Let's start with the one you probably already know.
There is before ChatGPT and there is after ChatGPT. OpenAI is the company that drew that line. Since the introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022, the company has grown from 300 to more than 5,000 employees, and more than 900 million monthly users. Last year, OpenAI generated over $13 billion in revenue, which sounds impressive. But here is the catch.
OpenAI is not profitable. Neither is Anthropic. SpaceX brought in $18.7 billion in revenue last year and is not profitable either. To understand why, you have to look at what it actually costs to build artificial intelligence at this scale.
OpenAI alone expects to spend $115 billion over the next four years. That is the price of building and running the data centers that power artificial intelligence at this scale. The servers, the chips, the electricity, the people. It all adds up, and it adds up fast. OpenAI has raised more than $180 billion since 2015 and is spending it like someone just handed it an unlimited credit card.
With a price and profit gap like this, investors are paying roughly 56 times OpenAI's annual revenue, based on the $730 billion private valuation and $13 billion in reported revenue, for a company that has never been profitable. It is worth noting that the $730 billion figure does not even include OpenAI's latest funding round. This means that the true valuation, and the multiple, could be even higher.
To really understand why that number is extraordinary, Facebook went public in 2012 valued at around $104 billion and was already turning a profit. It was making more money than it was spending. When Alibaba listed in 2014, which was the largest IPO in history at the time, it raised $25 billion and was profitable too.
What is being asked of public investors here is a significantly larger leap of faith than anything that has come before it. Betting on potential over profit is not new. Doing it at $730 billion is.
Still, investors are lining up. But why?
Because the bet is not on what these companies are earning now. It is on what they will earn eventually, and on the argument of who will win the AI race. And whoever wins that race will control the infrastructure as foundational as electricity or the internet, and the revenues that follow could be huge.
Winning a race like this costs money, and a lot of it. Going public raises the capital needed to build more data centers, hire more researchers, and secure more computing power faster than the competition.
All three companies filing within weeks of each other is not a coincidence. It is a race to the same pool of public money, and the winner gets to outspend everyone else. The IPO is the moment the invite-only party becomes Project X. The bigger the crowd, the bigger the budget.
What also makes this moment one for the history books is the scale. If SpaceX went public at a valuation of around $1.77 trillion, it would rank among the largest IPOs in history and would be one of the largest companies to list on a public exchange.
Add the valuations of all three together and you get a number that makes every previous IPO wave in modern market history look small. And this is the kind of moment that changes what your portfolio looks like whether you want to or not.
When companies of this size list on a major exchange, they eventually qualify for inclusion in major indices like the S&P 500. Every person who holds a passive index fund or a retirement account tracking the market will automatically own a small piece of them, whether they made a conscious choice or not. Understanding what you are buying before it arrives in your portfolio is not optional. It is just being an informed investor.
Now you know the names, the valuations, and the race they are all running. It is time to welcome OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX to the Wall Street villa 2026.
What Actually Matters This Week
✦ The Signal
The gap between private market valuation and profitability is real and has never been tested by public investors before. OpenAI is worth $730 billion in private markets, growing fast, and losing money. Anthropic is worth $900 billion. When these companies list, public markets will decide for themselves whether those numbers hold. That process of price discovery is the most important financial event in the AI sector in years.
The second genuine signal is Anthropic's revenue trajectory. The company originally planned to grow revenues ten times this year. Revenue could now grow 80 times this year, driven primarily by Claude Code. If accurate, the profitability timeline changes significantly. That is new information and markets will price it.
✦ The Noise
The exact timing of each IPO is largely noise. SpaceX could list as early as this Friday, but OpenAI and Anthropic have both said they have not yet decided when they will go public. OpenAI specifically noted it "may be a while."
Headlines about Elon Musk potentially becoming the world's first trillionaire is interesting but secondary. What matters is whether public investors agree with the valuations private investors have assigned. That question will only be answered on day one of trading.
What's Moving in Markets
AI and tech equities are the primary beneficiary this week. A wave of high-profile IPO filings lifts the broader sector as investor enthusiasm rises. Microsoft, a major OpenAI investor, and Google, a fierce Anthropic rival with its own competing AI products, are both worth watching this week as the IPO news changes how investors think about them.
The IPO market more broadly is picking up momentum. A successful wave of AI listings could unlock the broader IPO pipeline that has been largely frozen since 2022, when rising interest rates made investors far more cautious about high growth companies with little to no profit. If these three listings go well, the door opens for others behind them.
Private market valuations are coming under indirect scrutiny. Moving from private to public pricing introduces real accountability. If any of these companies list and trade below their private valuation, that sends a signal across the entire venture capital ecosystem about where AI company prices should sit.
The US dollar receives mild support from technology driven capital flows. Foreign investors participating in these offerings bring demand for dollar denominated assets, adding a quiet tailwind to the currency.
Asset Direction
| Asset | Direction | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| AI & Tech Equities | ↑ Up | IPO filings signal investor appetite. Microsoft and Google reassessed as key players in the AI landscape. |
| IPO Market | ↑ Reopening | Three major filings in two weeks suggests appetite for high growth offerings is returning. |
| USD | ↑ Mild support | Foreign investor participation in US listings creates demand for dollar denominated assets. |
| Private Market Valuations | ! Under scrutiny | Public listings force price discovery. |
Currency & Interest Rate
Where Currencies Stand
USD: Mild upward pressure. Large US tech IPOs attract global capital into dollar-denominated assets. Not dramatic, but the direction is consistent.
EUR/USD and EM FX: No direct signal this week from the article.
The Yield Picture
Not directly covered in the article. The IPO wave does not alter inflation expectations or rate cut timing.
How It All Connects
What makes this moment genuinely unusual is the scale of the mismatch between price and profit. Private markets have been valuing these companies on potential, not performance. Public market investors have historically been more demanding, particularly in a higher rate environment where capital has a real cost. The question is whether the price is right, and that is a question only public markets can answer.
The index angle compounds everything. The S&P 500 typically requires profitability before inclusion. But Anthropic's 80 times revenue growth claim, if accurate, makes profitability within a year or two of listing plausible. At that point, the choice is already made for you.
Why This Matters to You
The broader market picture. The markets may be risk-on this week with the AI IPO wave generating excitement across the technology sector. But the fundamental backdrop has not changed. Rates remain elevated, profitability remains distant for all three companies, and the valuations have not been tested yet.
For your business or portfolio
Glossary
- IPO (Initial Public Offering)
- When a private company sells shares to the public for the first time.
- Confidential Filing
- A private submission to financial regulators allowing companies to prepare for a public listing without disclosing financial details publicly until they choose to. It gives flexibility on timing.
- Valuation
- The estimated total value of a company. In private markets this is set in funding rounds by a small group of investors. In public markets it is set in real time by actual buying and selling.
- Revenue vs Profit
- Revenue is the total money coming in. Profit is what remains after all costs are paid. A company can have very high revenue and still lose money, which is the case for all three companies here.
- Tender Offer
- When a company allows employees or early investors to sell their shares to private buyers before a public listing. It provides liquidity without requiring an IPO first.
- Index Inclusion
- When a company joins a major index like the S&P 500, passive funds automatically buy its shares regardless of any individual investor's view on the company.
- Price Discovery
- The process by which public markets determine the real value of a company through actual buying and selling.
- Discount Rate
- The interest rate used to calculate what future earnings are worth in today's money. When rates are high, future profits are worth less today, which puts extra pressure on companies valued on distant potential rather than current earnings.
- Revenue Multiple
- A way of measuring how expensive a company is relative to how much money it brings in. The higher the multiple, the more faith the market is placing in future growth.
Key Question to Ask Yourself Today
If these companies end up in your portfolio tomorrow, would you know they were there?
Passive investing works, but it makes the decisions on your behalf. And right now, it is about to make a very big decision for you.
Additional References
- Nasdaq. (2012, May 17). Facebook prices at $38, high end of revised range; third-largest US IPO ever. nasdaq.com
- Fortune. (2014, September 22). Alibaba is officially the biggest IPO ever after 'Green Shoe' released. fortune.com
- Time. (2014, September 18). Alibaba IPO: Everything you need to know. time.com
- Trading Economics. (2024). France GDP. World Bank. tradingeconomics.com/france/gdp
Enjoyed this issue?Subscribe to get next week's breakdown straight to your inbox, the day it drops.
Subscribe for next week's issue →