OpenAI Discloses $50 Billion Annualized Revenue, $18 Billion Below Circulated Figure

OpenAI's $50 Billion Briefing

OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue, a run rate extrapolated from recent months, stands near $50 billion, roughly $18 billion short of the $68 billion figure that circulated widely in late September, and the chipmakers tied to its spending absorbed the gap on Thursday. Nvidia stock fell 2.94% in the session and closed at $230.48, about 5% below the record high of $243.37 set on Tuesday. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which signed its own multibillion-dollar partnership with OpenAI, lost 3.9%, and Oracle dropped more than 5% in the same AI-linked selloff. Both chipmakers carry direct exposure to OpenAI's growth through those partnerships.

Alex Kantrowitz, founder of Big Technology, called the shortfall largely an accounting matter on CNBC's Closing Bell. The affected companies have mostly performed well this year: Nvidia is up about 24% and carries a market value near $5.6 trillion, and its fundamentals are intact, with $96.22 billion in revenue last quarter against a $92.16 billion estimate. Kantrowitz still described a skittish trade, noting some companies have shifted part of their spending from frontier models to standard ones. Market breadth is thin as well, with the top seven stocks outpacing the other 493 in the S&P 500, and a Closing Bell host put the technology trade at more than 40% of the market, a share Kantrowitz agreed makes the broader market dependent on OpenAI and Anthropic. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives pushed back, naming Nvidia among his top five technology picks for 2027 and arguing investors underestimate a $4 trillion AI spending wave. Kantrowitz's warning was blunter: the market is waiting for something to go wrong, and any wrinkle could repeat Thursday's selloff, or worse.

Partner Revenue, Anthropic and 2027

The lower number arrived in an investor briefing, and the earlier $68 billion figure had counted the total revenue of OpenAI's partners, a framing meant to let investors compare the company directly with rival Anthropic, according to CNBC. The update carried no audited statement behind it, since it came in a briefing rather than a public filing. Annualized revenue stood at $40 billion in August, so the run rate added about $10 billion in roughly five weeks. The same briefing put third-quarter annualized revenue growth at 77% and enterprise business growth at 107%, which shows the underlying expansion has not slowed even as the headline comparison deflated.

The disclosure rippled through every name touched by AI capital spending when it landed on October 8. CoreWeave fell nearly 8%, Oracle close to 6%, Intel 5% and Super Micro almost 5%, while AMD and Broadcom each lost about 4% and Nvidia traded 3% lower at the time of reporting. OpenAI carries an $852 billion valuation, submitted a confidential listing application to US regulators in June and has executives pointing toward a 2027 public offering, although CEO Sam Altman said in September that going public now is not wise, citing AI-safety concerns. Early-stage talks on a fresh funding round of about $30 billion are also underway; the size and terms have not been finalized. Kantrowitz expects Anthropic's initial public offering within weeks and OpenAI's a year later, and he argues filings from the two listings could settle whether AI revenue can carry the spending behind Nvidia's valuation. Anthropic, the benchmark for that earlier partner-inclusive figure, told investors in August that its annualized revenue had reached $65 billion by the end of July, and its leaked S-1 shows losses outpacing revenue gains; independent research firm New Constructs called it “the most absurd IPO of 2026.”

The tape has steadied since the briefing. COINOTAG data shows Nvidia (NVDA) changing hands at $234.19 on Friday, down 0.88%, inside a 24-hour range of $230.15 to $237.33 that has already tested both the $230.20 support, scored 78/100, and the $236.38 resistance at 77/100. Positioning remains constructive, with funding on the stock perpetual at 0.0247% per interval against $210.8 million in open interest. The OPENAI pre-IPO tracker fell 2.52% to $1,664.91 and holds a sideways daily trend with a bearish MACD signal, which means the private-market proxy repriced the revenue number before any public filing confirms it.