Palantir CEO Alex Karp reckons Open AI will never IPO — mainly due to the huge amount of liability it carries | Tech Radar
Overview
News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets
Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more
Details
Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards.
Unlock instant access to exclusive member features.
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp reckons Open AI will never IPO — mainly due to the huge amount of liability it carries
Planned IPOs may never materialize for AI giants, Kapr believes
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp says frontier AI labs may end up nationalized because of the potentially unlimited liability they carry
When asked how those risks could be disclosed in an S-1 IPO filing, Karp challenged the premise itself, saying: “You’re assuming that there will be an S-1.”
His argument centers around the assumption that large AI-related liabilities ultimately require government intervention at some level, even as Open AI's CEO Sam Altman ruled out an IPO in 2026, citing AI safety concerns
Palantir CEO Alex Karp has cast doubt on whether the frontier AI labs will ever reach the public markets.
A widely shared post on X by Guillermo Flor summarized Karp as saying Open AI will never IPO, that there may be no S-1 in play, and that nationalization is the only real exit because the liability exposure from frontier AI is so large that "no public market could potentially absorb it."
His comments brought renewed focus on Open AI and Anthropic, both of which have recently pledged to prioritize AI safety and "pacing the frontier" of development but have both released new versions of their AI models this week (GPT-6 Sol, Luna, and Opus 5.5).
A case made by focusing on potential liabilities
The comments come from Karp's September 17 appearance on CNBC's Squawk on the Street. In a transcript of the segment published by Real Clear Politics, a host asks how the liability Karp has been describing would be written into an S-1, and what the risk factors would sound like.
Karp's answer was one that sent shockwaves in an industry already pricing in potentially two trillion-dollar IPOs in the near future: "You're assuming that there will be an S-1. Okay. Maybe there will be."
‘Something has gone completely wrong’: Palantir CEO Alex Karp slams Open AI, says AI industry is "effing insane"
Open AI giving the U. S. government a piece of the company might not be a public windfall
Open AI CEO Sam Altman is worried about AI being controlled by just a few powerful players
He argued that the only way to handle that liability is to ask the government to nationalize said frontier labs, adding that companies often lead you to a conclusion rather than stating what they want outright.
The truth may be more complex: Open AI confirmed on June 8 that it had confidentially submitted a draft S-1 to the SEC, while noting that some of what it wants to do is "likely easier as a private company." Anthropic made its own confidential submission a week earlier.
Neither company, however, has issued a public S-1 registration statement, using existing regulations to keep its financials private for now. Open AI also pushed back its own timetable before Karp's statements. In an interview published by Fortune on September 12, Sam Altman said, "right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public," confirming there would be no listing in 2026 and citing safety and alignment work.
This is not a new position for Palantir's CEO; in June, Benzinga reported that he spent six months privately warning AI executives about nationalization, telling an interviewer, "The momentum is on the side of people who want to nationalize them."
He also has a commercial interest in the argument, as Palantir sells software built on the premise that enterprises keep their data in-house, and in an August CNBC interview, Karp argued that businesses should control their own models and lean less on the frontier labs' token-based business model. On September 17, per Stocktwits, he again pointed to open models as a way for companies to keep control of their data.
His position rests on the belief that frontier labs carry liability only the government can absorb, that their appetite for regulation partly aims to limit that exposure, and that investors expecting blockbuster listings may be misreading the risk. Whether the delayed Open AI IPO eventually culminates in some form of nationalization, regulatory oversight, or both remains to be seen.
What is certain, however, is that both Anthropic and Open AI need billions of dollars to keep training their models and meet compute commitments in the near future, and they might turn to a source that seemed unlikely to some in the industry less than half a year ago: the US federal government.
Follow Tech Radar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.
Having built hundreds of gaming PCs and being an avid gamer in his spare time, Rahim tends to have stronger opinions about hardware than most. This is particularly on display when he gets his way with powerful, but minimalistic RGB builds even as Small Form Factor (SFF) PCs come a close second.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Palantir CEO Alex Karp reckons Open AI will never IPO — mainly due to the huge amount of liability it carries
Samsung Galaxy S27 series leak suggests the RAM and storage upgrades will be very limited
Avengers: Endgame Encore end credits scenes leak ahead of Marvel movie's release
How to pick and set up a self-hosted app to run your own server
The Eufy Omni E35 boasts huge suction power, good mopping performance, and self-cleaning
Tech Radar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.
© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.
Key Takeaways
- News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets
- Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more
- Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards
- Unlock instant access to exclusive member features
- Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards
