That Time I Tried to Buy OpenAI
Could a retail investor buy a single share of the privately held company? The assignment was alluring. It also revealed a few important lessons.
Illustration: Vincent Kilbride
The IPOs are coming. SpaceX is said to be planning an initial public offering in 2026, possibly raising more than $30 billion. Anthropic has similar plans for early in the year, and preparations are apparently underway for OpenAI to list with a valuation of $1 trillion in the second half of 2026. Exciting times — at least for those convinced that these companies will define our futures and are worth their current valuations.
So exciting that maybe you don’t want to wait. In a world where companies stay private far longer than they used to, surely it makes sense to consider how you might be able to become an OpenAI owner before most of your fellow investors. Aside from the obvious investing routes — proxies such as Microsoft and Nvidia,1 a Robinhood token,2 living in Abu Dhabi and hoping to benefit from the technology investment company MGX3 — how do you get your hands on a slice of OpenAI, even if it’s just a single share? My Bloomberg editors posed exactly that question to me, and while I’m not 100% convinced of OpenAI’s enduring value, a challenge is a challenge. I soon found myself on something of a Homeric journey to discover if I could do exactly that.