Analysis
SpaceX is the closest live comparable OpenAI and Anthropic have for what happens after a trillion-dollar-adjacent private company goes public, and the early read isn't encouraging. SpaceX priced its IPO in June, popped to $150 on debut, ran past $225 within days, and closed this week at $108.27, according to CNBC -- a drawdown of more than 50% from the post-IPO peak, arriving the same week as the first of four consecutive monthly share-unlock events that will roughly double, then keep expanding, the stock's public float through October.
The mechanism is straightforward: a stock that traded on scarcity while insiders were locked up gets tested every time a new, large batch of sellable shares hits the market, and SpaceX's first unlock -- 911.5 million shares, up to $116 billion -- landed while the stock was already trading well off its highs, not from strength. Pulse covered the unlock itself in detail; this is about what it means for the two companies watching closest.
“Pulse covered the unlock itself in detail; this is about what it means for the two companies watching closest.”
That sequencing matters for Anthropic and OpenAI specifically. Anthropic priced its last private round at a $965 billion valuation in June and has an IPO roadshow already underway; OpenAI has filed confidentially and carries a similar order-of-magnitude private mark, with SoftBank alone committing roughly $64.6 billion toward it. Both companies will eventually face their own version of SpaceX's August: a period where paper valuation meets a public order book and early backers get their first real chance to sell.
None of this predicts how OpenAI or Anthropic will trade -- different company, different investor base, different lockup structures are all live variables. But it does mean anyone modeling a clean, straight-line path from "confidential S-1 filed" to "stock holds its private mark" should look at what four straight months of unlock events are currently doing to the most comparable mega-IPO available.
