OpenAI had planned to spin off its robotics and hardware divisions before the IPO, but the plan was rejected due to financial consolidation issues.

According to Beating Monitoring, The Wall Street Journal exclusively reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discussed last year the possibility of splitting the company’s robotics division and consumer hardware division to seek separate funding and operate independently, in order to avoid dragging down the core business. However, this plan was ultimately rejected, partly because OpenAI determined that the spun-off new entity would still need to be consolidated into the parent company’s financial statements, failing to achieve a true separation.

This concept reflects the strategic trade-offs during OpenAI’s push toward an IPO. Over the years, Altman has approved numerous projects beyond the scope of chatbots, but the company is currently facing greater pressure to focus: its core business lags behind Anthropic, some internal users and revenue targets have not met expectations, and the video generation tool Sora has been cut to free up computing power. Currently, OpenAI is transforming around a new “super app,” mainly targeting developers and enterprise users.

Sources say OpenAI may restart the split plan in the future, referencing Google’s 2015 establishment of Alphabet as a holding company, separating core search operations from long-term investments like Waymo. The two departments pending separation are now operating independently within the company and report directly to Altman. Last May, the hardware division acquired io, founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive, with $6.5 billion in stock, along with approximately 55 employees; the new devices under development are not expected to ship before February 2027.