OpenAI may file confidentially for an IPO in the US as early as this week, multiple reports said, after its success in a legal challenge earlier this month removed a key obstacle.

The AI start-up has been working with bankers at firms including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to create a draft IPO prospectus to be filed confidentially with regulators in the near future, said a Wall Street Journal report, which was confirmed by other reports from outlets including Reuters and Bloomberg.

The prospectus could reportedly be filed as early as Friday, with the goal of pushing for an IPO as early as September, although plans remain fluid.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has been advocating an IPO, while chief financial officer Sarah Friar has told company leaders the firm may need more time, according to previous reports.

OpenAI was valued at $852 billion (£634bn) with its most recent funding round.

The company has reportedly missed multiple internal revenue targets in recent months, as it faces increased competition from Google and Anthropic.

Anthropic and SpaceX are also planning IPOs in the near future, with SpaceX submitting filings on Wednesday for a potential offering in June.

All three companies are expected to receive a market value of around $1tn.

The leaders of the three companies are closely associated with one another, with SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk co-founding OpenAI with Altman and others in 2015.

Researcher Dario Amodei joined OpenAI the following year before leaving in 2021 to co-found Anthropic, where he currently serves as chief executive.

Musk sued Altman and OpenAI in 2024, arguing its creation of a for-profit division was fraudulent, but a jury decided in favour of OpenAI last week.

Anthropic is paying SpaceX billions a year for compute capacity at SpaceX’s Colossus and Colossus 2 data centres, originally built by start-up xAI that was recently folded into the aerospace firm, SpaceX said in its IPO prospectus.