OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar appeared on CNBC for an interview addressing the artificial intelligence company's latest corporate developments, which span record-setting fundraising, a confidential US IPO filing, and a large-scale infrastructure buildout.

Friar, who stepped into the CFO role in June 2024, has become a familiar presence on the financial news circuit throughout 2025 and 2026. Her appearances have covered fundraising milestones, infrastructure buildouts, and the question every tech investor is asking: when does OpenAI go public?

Record-scale fundraising

OpenAI closed a $122 billion funding round in March 2026, a figure that would have sounded like satire only a few years ago. The round lifted the company's post-money valuation to $852 billion, placing it in the same tier as the most valuable public on Earth—even though OpenAI is not public yet.

The investor roster includes some of the deepest pockets in technology: Amazon led with a $50 billion commitment, while Nvidia and SoftBank each contributed $30 billion. A raise of this scale reflects how frontier AI development has become one of the most capital-intensive corners of the technology industry, where compute and data center commitments dominate the budget picture.

By the end of 2025, OpenAI reported more than $40 billion on its balance sheet—a level of reserves that highlights how today's late-stage private companies can raise capital once supplied primarily through public listings.

The IPO question

OpenAI confidentially filed for a US IPO in June 2026, a move that shifted the company from “maybe someday” territory into “probably soon” territory. Confidential filings, a route popularized under the 2012 JOBS Act, allow companies to submit draft registration statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission privately and settle details such as the exchange, ticker, and share count before documents become public ahead of any listing.

Friar's background makes her particularly suited to this moment. Before joining OpenAI, she served as CEO of Nextdoor and CFO of Square, where she steered the payments company through its 2015 IPO, giving her experience on both sides of the C-suite during periods of rapid growth and public market scrutiny.

For potential IPO investors, one of the more notable shifts has been OpenAI's revenue composition, as the company transitions toward a more balanced split between consumer and enterprise clients. From here, the path runs on regulators' clocks as much as OpenAI's: draft registration statements go public as SEC review advances, and the company sets the final timing for when trading begins.

DevDay and the developer ecosystem

OpenAI's DevDay conference on September 29, 2026, showcased more than 20 announcements spanning new models and developer tools, with highlights including models from the GPT-6 series, enhanced API capabilities, and expanded tooling designed to make it easier for developers to build on top of OpenAI's infrastructure.

Friar's CNBC appearances have also touched on the Stargate project, OpenAI's ambitious infrastructure initiative intended to ensure the company has enough processing power to train and serve increasingly capable AI models. The project, announced in January 2025 with reported commitments of up to $500 billion, ranks among the largest infrastructure programs in the technology industry.

Taken together, the record fundraising, the confidential IPO filing, and the wave of DevDay announcements form the backdrop for Friar's latest television appearance as OpenAI moves closer to a potential public listing.

Source: CryptoBriefing