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