OpenAI's annualized revenue is reportedly near $50B, not $70B, and chip and cloud stocks fall
The Financial Times reported that OpenAI recently told investors its annualized revenue was nearing $50 billion. That is about $20 billion below the $70 billion figure that had circulated in earlier media reports based on investor information. A person familiar with the documents told CNN the higher number never came from OpenAI. It likely came from attempts to compare OpenAI with Anthropic, whose figures include gross revenue from cloud providers, while OpenAI reports net revenue. The Thursday selloff hit companies tied to the AI buildout. Nvidia slid from a record above $243 toward $230, and Asian chip stocks also weakened. The report comes as OpenAI's partners line up very large financing packages for its chips and data centers. For founders, the episode shows that gross versus net accounting can move headline revenue by tens of billions. It also shows that public markets now read OpenAI's numbers as a signal for the whole AI infrastructure trade, so expect closer scrutiny of how AI companies report revenue.
