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OpenAI rattled the AI trade on Thursday.
The Financial Times reported that OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was about $50 billion at the end of September. That’s roughly $20 billion below the figure of about $70 billion that was widely reported just a few weeks ago.
Here’s why I’m ignoring negative OpenAI headlines. And I’m betting on a new trillion-dollar AI revolution that’s starting right now.
The selloff was swift.
· Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) fell 3%
· Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) dropped nearly 6%
· CoreWeave (Nasdaq: CRWV) slid almost 8%
· Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO) down 4%
· Advanced Micro Devices (Nasdaq: AMD) also lost 4%
So, is the AI boom running out of steam? Not even close.
The $20 billion gap comes down to how revenue gets counted.
Anthropic reported a $65 billion run rate at the end of July. That figure includes sales that run through cloud partners like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. Late last month, investors tried to measure OpenAI on that same gross basis so the two companies could be compared side by side. That’s where the $70 billion number came from.
OpenAI’s own figure is net. It counts only the revenue OpenAI keeps after its cloud partners take their cut. That’s the $50 billion.
Nothing about OpenAI’s customer demand changed on Thursday.
Here’s the part most headlines skipped.
OpenAI’s annualized revenue climbed from about $28 billion at the end of June to roughly $50 billion at the end of September. The company told investors that works out to 77% run-rate growth for the quarter. Its enterprise business grew 107%.
Wall Street seemed to catch on quickly. Nvidia was up 1.7% in premarket trading Friday. Oracle, CoreWeave and Broadcom recovered only part of their losses.
There is a real lesson here. A huge amount of market value now rides on two private companies that don’t publish audited financials. Until OpenAI and Anthropic go public, any leaked number can move the entire sector.
That will change.
OpenAI confidentially filed for its IPO in June and is eyeing a 2027 debut. When the prospectus goes public, investors will get one audited definition of revenue instead of competing estimates.
In the meantime, OpenAI is telling investors it expects to reach $70 billion in annualized revenue by year-end, measured on its own net basis.
CEO Sam Altman is making major investments in Phase 3 AI. It could be critical to taking OpenAI revenues above $200 billion within the next couple years.
Click here to grab by top 5 stocks for the next AI boom.
Ian Wyatt
Editor, Daily Profit