OpenAI's hotly anticipated stock-market debut may not happen as soon as investors hoped. According to crypto.news, the company is weighing delaying what the outlet describes as a roughly $1 trillion initial public offering, and the news sent shares of its key backer, SoftBank, tumbling.
Yahoo Finance reports that the listing could now slip to 2027, leaving SoftBank Group — which trades in Tokyo under the ticker 9984 — facing a longer wait before it can see a payoff from its position in the artificial-intelligence company.
The two reports together sketch a simple but consequential picture: a delay in one of the most valuable potential IPOs in history, and an immediate market reaction in the stock of the investor most closely tied to it. When crypto.news notes that SoftBank "tumbles" on the news, it underscores how tightly SoftBank's fortunes are now linked to OpenAI's timeline.
For readers, the dollar figure is the headline number. A roughly $1 trillion valuation would put OpenAI among the largest companies ever to go public, so the timing of that event matters well beyond the two firms involved. A push to 2027 means the broader payoff that many investors are betting on from the current AI boom would arrive later than some expected.
The available reporting does not spell out OpenAI's specific reasons for considering a delay, how firm the 2027 timeframe is, or how large SoftBank's stake is. What is clear from the sources is the direction of travel: a later listing, and a backer whose shares fell on the prospect.
Why it matters: OpenAI's IPO is shaping up to be a defining test of how much the public markets will pay for the AI boom, and a delay pushes that reckoning — and SoftBank's potential reward — further down the road.