OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed during a 45-minute interview with Fortune that the company will not pursue an IPO in 2026. The interview covered various topics including the Hugging Face hacking incident, recursive self-improvement, and the possibility of building AI beyond human control.
On the latter topic, Altman said it was "absolutely" possible to build AI beyond human control, but vowed to take actions to prevent that from happening, even if it meant pausing training. He stated, "there are risks we should not be able to incur on behalf of humanity."
Altman said going public now would be "ill-advised" given everything happening with safety, and that the company does not feel pressure on the timing. "We've said for a long time, we'll do it when we're ready," he said, adding "not 2026" and "we've got a lot of stuff to do."