OpenAI Misses Revenue Targets—Bringing Shares Of These Investors Down

Topline

Shares of OpenAI’s investors and partners stumbled in early trading on Tuesday, after the Wall Street Journal reported the AI giant missed internal revenue and user growth projections, raising concerns among executives that OpenAI may be unable to pay for future contracts.

One executive told employees that OpenAI may be unable to fund future computing contracts.

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Key Facts

OpenAI missed an internal goal of one billion weekly active users for ChatGPT by the end of 2025, as well as several monthly revenue targets earlier this year after losing some of its market share to Anthropic, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Sarah Friar, OpenAI’s chief financial officer, reportedly disclosed to other company leaders concerns the firm may be unable to pay for future computing contracts if revenue growth fails to accelerate.

Friar has also expressed caution about OpenAI’s plans to go public by the end of the year, warning the company may be unable to meet the reporting standards required of a public company, while CEO Sam Altman prefers an aggressive timeline, according to the Journal.

“[This] raises questions about whether [OpenAI] can fulfill its massive infrastructure obligations,” Adam Crisafulli, an analyst for Vital Knowledge, wrote in a note Tuesday.

The report pulled back shares of some of OpenAI’s largest investors and partners, including Nvidia (down 3%), Microsoft (1%), Broadcom (4%), CoreWeave (7.1%), Oracle (6.5%) and SoftBank (11.9%).

Chief Critic

OpenAI spokesperson Steve Sharpe called the Journal’s report “clickbait” in a statement to Forbes. Sharpe said OpenAI’s business is “firing on all cylinders,” adding its consumer strength is starting to show up in revenue and its enterprise business is “in the best place it has ever been.”

Big Number

$852 billion. That’s what OpenAI’s post-money valuation grew to after a $122 billion funding round in March, following a $110 billion funding round a month earlier. OpenAI reportedly now plans to spend roughly $600 billion on computing by 2030, a lower projection after Altman first estimated $1.4 trillion, with revenue expected to exceed $280 billion.

What To Watch For

OpenAI’s long-awaited IPO filing. Friar signaled “really strong demand” from individual investors earlier this month, with plans for OpenAI to reserve a portion of shares for retail traders once the company goes public. OpenAI is preparing for an IPO that would value the AI giant at more than $1 trillion, Reuters reported in October, making OpenAI one of the largest stock debuts ever.

Key Background

The broader AI market has ramped up over the last year, with several megacap firms planning to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure to meet growing demand. Last year, several firms announced multi-billion-dollar deals and partnerships with OpenAI, with a $500 billion “Stargate” deal between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle ranking among the largest. Other deals included a $300 billion contract between OpenAI and Oracle, a $100 billion partnership between OpenAI and Nvidia, a more than $22 billion deal reached between CoreWeave and OpenAI and a $38 billion partnership between Amazon and OpenAI.