Will Open AI Beat Anthropic to Market After Legal Victory, Sudden IPO Announcement?
OpenAI is rushing to market to beat Anthropic after scoring a victory over Elon Musk on Tuesday. Can Anthropic battle back, or is it too late with Sam Altman's latest push? Peter Alexis breaks down the Kalshi odds for OpenAI vs. Anthropic IPO as of Wednesday, May 20th.
Peter Alexis - May 20, 2026, 5:55 PM EDT
4 Minute ReadOpen AI vs. Anthropic IPO Odds: Sam Altman, OpenAI Racing to Market After Legal Victory Over Elon Musk
The race between OpenAI and Anthropic to announce an IPO first has flipped dramatically on Kalshi. OpenAI is now a 79% favorite, while Anthropic has fallen to 29%, a massive reversal from just a few days ago when Anthropic was the market leader and OpenAI was trading around 24%.
The move comes after OpenAI cleared a major legal obstacle by defeating Elon Musk’s latest claims in court, then quickly moved toward a confidential IPO filing that could arrive within weeks. What once looked like a Q4 timeline has suddenly become a potential end-of-Q2 race, and traders are now treating OpenAI as the company rushing hardest toward the public markets.
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Open AI vs. Anthropic IPO Race Odds Breakdown
OpenAI (79% Chance) Click here to Bet on Open AI with Kalshi Here
OpenAI’s surge is all about timing. Back in mid-February, OpenAI was only around 51% to announce an IPO in 2026 at all, which shows how dramatically sentiment has changed. The company was already viewed as a likely public-market candidate eventually, but the legal fight with Musk and governance uncertainty had kept traders cautious.
That caution has evaporated fast. OpenAI scored one major momentum win during the Iran conflict when the U.S. government backed away from Anthropic on defense work and moved toward OpenAI instead, giving the company a bigger national-security foothold at exactly the moment investors were comparing the two AI giants. OpenAI then followed that with a court win against Musk, removing a major overhang tied to its for-profit transition and IPO readiness.
Now the company is reportedly preparing to file confidentially for an IPO in the coming weeks, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley involved and a possible public debut as early as September. That is why the Kalshi price has exploded from 24% to 79%. The market is no longer treating OpenAI as a late-2026 candidate. It is treating OpenAI as a company actively trying to beat Anthropic to the tape.
Anthropic (29% Chance) Click here to Bet on Anthropic with Kalshi Here
Anthropic’s fall is not because the company has lost relevance. Claude remains a major enterprise AI product, and Anthropic is still one of the most important frontier labs in the world. But the IPO race has shifted from “who is better positioned long term?” to “who is moving faster right now?” On that question, OpenAI suddenly has the stronger case.
Anthropic is now just 53% to announce an IPO by October, which shows how much uncertainty remains around its timeline. That number also raises the key question: does OpenAI’s rapid push force Anthropic to accelerate, or does it make Anthropic more cautious about entering the market second in a crowded AI IPO window?
The risk for Anthropic is that OpenAI defines the category first. If OpenAI files soon, investors, banks, and media attention may lock onto the ChatGPT maker as the headline AI listing of the year. Anthropic can still battle back with a concrete filing update, but the market needs evidence. Right now, OpenAI has the legal win, the government-contract momentum, and the clearer IPO acceleration.
IPO Race Outlook
This market has become OpenAI’s to lose. A few months ago, traders were not even fully sold that OpenAI would IPO in 2026. Now the company is 79% to beat Anthropic specifically, which shows how quickly the court win and filing reports have changed the race.
Anthropic is still live because IPO timelines can shift quickly, especially for companies this large and complex. But unless Anthropic answers with its own hard timeline, OpenAI’s rapid push may turn this from a competitive race into a countdown.
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