Turning public companies into private companies: the SEC’s retreat from transparency and accountability

In recent remarks at the “Revitalizing America’s Markets” event, SEC Chair Paul Atkins laid out a plan that would fundamentally redefine what it means to be a public company in the United States. He framed it as a plan to “make IPOs great again,” but beneath the rhetoric lies something far more consequential: a shift toward a marketplace where public companies behave like private ones — shielded from disclosure, insulated from shareholder input, and increasingly detached from the long-term health of the broader economy. In essence, it is a move toward absolute control by CEOs and their boards of directors, with little to no accountability to shareholders or regulators. What could go wrong?

Atkins described three pillars of his new plan: rolling back disclosure requirements, “de-politicizi