We’re not going to make you scroll through an entire article for your answer: OpenAI is not a publicly-traded company yet, so you can't buy shares of its stock on a stock exchange.
But OpenAI is gearing up for an IPO — potentially as soon as this fall — and shares may be available to accredited investors on certain pre-IPO marketplaces. Plus, there are some publicly-traded funds that have exposure to OpenAI. Also, one of OpenAI’s partners is a blue-chip technology company — Microsoft — that anyone can invest in.
What is OpenAI?
OpenAI is a California-based artificial intelligence research organization led by tech entrepreneur Sam Altman. It’s the developer of the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) AI models that power popular AI products like ChatGPT, DALL-E and Sora.
OpenAI’s mission, according to its charter, is to “ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) — by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work — benefits all of humanity.”
The organization is widely perceived as being on the cutting-edge of AI development. It also plays a prominent role in AI safety — the study and practice of avoiding conflict between AI and humans — although its approach to AI safety has been controversial.
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Can you buy OpenAI stock?
As previously mentioned, you can’t buy OpenAI stock with a normal brokerage account because it isn’t a publicly-traded company (at least, not yet).
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, but in October 2025, it restructured itself by creating a public benefit corporation (PBC) — a type of for-profit company that is obligated to prioritize a social responsibility goal alongside profit — to control its business operations. Then it gave the original OpenAI nonprofit organization an equity stake in the new PBC.
The new PBC structure makes it possible for OpenAI to go public. Eyeware maker Warby Paker (WRBY) and insurance company Lemonade (LMND) are both publicly-traded companies that were PBCs at the time of their IPOs.
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What do we know about OpenAI's upcoming IPO?
On June 8, OpenAI confidentially filed an S-1 investment prospectus form with the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring its intent to go public. It announced the filing on its website, but did not disclose any details from the form.
OpenAI was valued at $852 billion in its most recent round of fundraising back in February. However, its valuation could change between now and its initial public offering (IPO), which could happen as early as September according to a Reuters report citing an unnamed source.
Little is publicly-known about OpenAI's finances, although documents published on June 15 by independent journalist Ed Zitron and verified by the Financial Times shed some light on its current situation. The leaked documents show that OpenAI's revenue has grown in recent years — from $3.7 billion in 2024 to $13.07 billion last year — but that its losses have grown as well, from $5.09 billion in 2024 to $38.5 billion in 2025. Companies often make their investment prospectuses publicly available a few weeks before their IPOs, so we may get more financial information about OpenAI later in the year.
Most of the details of its upcoming IPO, such as the exact date, exchange and ticker symbol, share price, and which brokers (if any) will offer OpenAI IPO shares, are yet to be determined as of the most recent update to this article. If IPO shares are available to retail investors, they will likely be available through some number of the brokers that offer IPO access.
In the meantime, pre-IPO OpenAI shares have become available on certain private marketplaces for accredited investors (people who have a net worth of at least $1 million, or more than $200,000 in annual earned income over the last two years, or certain financial professional licenses). These marketplaces include EquityZen, Hiive, Upmarket and Forge Global.
Even if you meet the wealth requirements to buy private OpenAI shares, it's worth considering that they are likely to be a pricey, complicated and risky investment that may not be easy to sell while the company is still private. Pre-IPO equity marketplaces are notoriously illiquid — there isn't a constant flow of buy and sell orders like you'd find on a major stock exchange, which means that not as many transactions happen and prices don't change as fast.
Typically, shares of nonpublic companies are a very long-term investment. OpenAI investors probably wouldn't be able to sell their shares on the open market until some time after OpenAI completes its expected IPO, as many pre-IPO investors of newly-public companies are subject to post-IPO lockup periods to discourage them from cashing out as soon as possible.
Investing in OpenAI pre-IPO via funds
There's another way to get some exposure to OpenAI equity, and it's generally available to all investors, accredited or not: certain publicly-traded funds such as Ark Venture Fund, SuRo Capital and Fundrise Innovation Fund.
But there are caveats here as well. These funds generally invest in multiple nonpublic companies, and aren't a "pure play" on OpenAI. Also, some are interval funds, meaning that investors can only buy or sell on certain dates (which may be quarterly, semiannually or annually).
If you're considering investing in OpenAI via a fund, make sure you read the fine print to make sure you understand how much exposure to OpenAI the fund actually has, and whether there are any limitations on when and how you can buy or sell.
The bottom line on investing in OpenAI
OpenAI isn't like, say, Apple — you can't buy its shares on a normal stock exchange, at least not yet — but that doesn’t mean the organization isn't on investors' radars.
It’s the most prominent AI developer in the world. It’s at the center of many conversations about what AI safety means — and what benevolent AI might look like. It’s worth nearly a trillion dollars, and it's expected to go public as soon as this fall.
At the time of writing, there’s no way to invest directly in OpenAI unless you're an accredited investor — and the only available indirect investments in the organization are Microsoft and certain special funds. But that could change in just a few months.
» Interested in other AI investments? Learn how to buy NVIDIA stock (NVDA)
Neither the author nor editor owned positions in the aforementioned investments at the time of publication.
Article sources
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- 1.Open AI. Open AI Charter. Accessed Dec 14, 2023.
- 2.OpenAI. Our structure. Accessed Jun 17, 2026.
- 3.Harvard Law School. PBCs and the Pursuit of Corporate Good. Accessed Jun 17, 2026.
- 4.OpenAI. Confidential submission of draft S-1 to the SEC.
- 5.Reuters. OpenAI's $110 billion funding round draws investment from Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank. Accessed Jun 17, 2026.
- 6.Reuters. OpenAI files for US IPO after Anthropic as AI giants head to public markets. Accessed Jun 17, 2026.
- 7.Financial Times. OpenAI spending hit $34bn last year ahead of planned IPO. Accessed Jun 17, 2026.
