Artificial Intelligence
OpenAI seeks $30bn after revenue estimate falls
OpenAI’s annualised revenue rate was reported at about $50 billion after an earlier higher estimate was revised, while the company continued talks for at least $30 billion in new capital.
- The Financial Times reported that OpenAI’s annualised revenue rate was about $50 billion at the end of September.
- Axios said the earlier near-$70 billion figure had used a calculation meant to make OpenAI’s number more comparable with Anthropic’s.
- The article said the different treatments of partner sales were allowed under US GAAP.
- The piece said OpenAI was negotiating at least $30 billion in new capital at a target pre-money valuation of $1.4 trillion.
- Bloomberg said OpenAI expected to reach at least $70 billion in annualised revenue by the end of 2026, while CNBC reported 77% third-quarter annualised revenue growth and 107% enterprise revenue growth.
The Financial Times reported that OpenAI’s annualised revenue rate was roughly $50 billion at the end of September. Axios said an earlier figure of almost $70 billion had been calculated to make OpenAI’s numbers more comparable with Anthropic’s, because the two firms booked partner sales differently.
The article said both accounting approaches complied with US GAAP, and that the difference came down to who controlled the customer relationship and delivery. After the report, tech shares fell, with chip stocks dropping several percent.
The piece said OpenAI was negotiating at least $30 billion in new capital at a target pre-money valuation of $1.4 trillion. It also said the company had moved its public offering to next year, while Sam Altman had said the delay was for safety reasons and the postponement had already been planned before recent cybersecurity incidents.
Bloomberg said OpenAI expected to reach at least $70 billion in annualised revenue by the end of 2026, and that the company had shared those figures during funding talks. CNBC reported that overall annualised revenue rose 77% in the third quarter and enterprise revenue rose 107%, and the original version of the story said ChatGPT had more than 1.2 billion weekly users, 35 million weekly ChatGPT Work and Codex users, and 2.5 million businesses on OpenAI products.
Named in this story
People
- Sam Altman
- OpenAI’s chief executive, who blamed the IPO delay on safety risks
Companies
- OpenAI
- the company whose revenue estimate and fundraising talks were reported
- Anthropic
- the rival used for an accounting comparison and IPO timing reference
Products and systems
- ChatGPT
- the chatbot whose weekly usage figures OpenAI disclosed
- ChatGPT Work
- one of the OpenAI products reported to have weekly users
- Codex
- the coding assistant that OpenAI said was growing quickly
- GPT-6.1-Sol
- the model OpenAI had just launched in its price war
- GPT-6
- the model family linked to Codex’s growth
- Claude
- the competitor model named in the price-war comparison
How the source tells it
The piece was mostly straight reporting, but it used market-jitter and growth-race framing in a few places.
- market unease the report tied the revised revenue figure to a chip-stock selloff and described investors as spooked
- growth hype the headline and repeated references to surging and fast growth framed the company as accelerating
- speculation it used may and likely language to link the market move to IPO timing and the AI bubble debate