OpenAI's Plan to Split Robotics and Hardware Departments Before IPO Rejected Due to Financial Reporting Issues

According to monitoring by Beating, The Wall Street Journal exclusively reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discussed last year the possibility of separating the company’s robotics and consumer hardware departments to allow them to secure independent financing and operate separately, thereby avoiding any drag on the core business. However, this plan was ultimately rejected, partly because OpenAI determined that the new entities would still need to be consolidated into the parent company’s financial statements, failing to achieve the intended separation effect. This idea reflects OpenAI’s strategic trade-offs during its IPO preparations. Over the years, Altman has approved numerous projects beyond the chatbot domain, but the company is currently facing increased pressure to focus: its core business is lagging behind Anthropic, and some internal user and revenue targets have not been met. The video generation tool Sora has been discontinued to free up computing power. Currently, OpenAI is pivoting around a new ‘super app,’ primarily targeting developers and enterprise users. Insiders indicate that OpenAI may revisit the separation plan in the future, following the model of Google’s establishment of Alphabet in 2015, which separated its core search business from long-term investments like Waymo for independent accounting. The two departments slated for separation are currently operating independently within the company, reporting directly to Altman. The hardware department acquired the io company, founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive, for $6.5 billion in stock last May, along with approximately 55 employees, and the new devices being developed are not expected to ship before February 2027.