Fifty billion, not seventy

OpenAI has told investors that its annualised revenue was approaching $50bn at the end of September, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing financial documents shared with investors. That is about $20bn less than the roughly $70bn reported by media outlets, Reuters among them, in late September, according to Reuters' account of the FT report. Reuters said it could not independently verify the report, and OpenAI did not immediately respond to its request for comment. TechCrunch said it had also asked the company for comment.

The difference is one of definition. It arose from attempts by OpenAI's own investors to produce a direct comparison with Anthropic, the FT reported, citing a person with knowledge of the matter. The two companies calculate the figure differently: Anthropic includes revenue from sales made through cloud partners such as AWS and Google Cloud, and OpenAI does not. CNBC, citing a person familiar with the matter, said the higher number, which it put at $68bn, incorporated gross revenue from partner companies, while the new figure is based on net revenue, according to Yahoo Finance, which said the discrepancy did not reflect a loss of sales. Reports had put the figure at between roughly $68bn and $70bn after OpenAI told investors that its revenue had risen by more than 70 per cent, Yahoo Finance said, citing Benzinga.

Annualised revenue is a run rate, which often involves multiplying one month's revenue by 12, Reuters noted, and it has become a popular measure among fast-growing Silicon Valley companies. By our arithmetic, $50bn a year is about $4.2bn a month, and $70bn would be about $5.8bn. If the whole gap is the partner revenue described, then counting it gross or net moves a single month's sales by roughly $1.7bn.

The growth figures were strong. OpenAI's investor presentation highlighted 77 per cent growth in its annual revenue run rate during the third quarter and 107 per cent growth in the run rate of its enterprise business, CNBC reported, according to Yahoo Finance and SiliconANGLE. If that 77 per cent was measured on the same net basis, the run rate at the start of July would have been about $28bn, by our arithmetic.

The market read it less kindly. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.25 per cent on Thursday, its worst day since mid-August, and the S&P 500 lost 0.5 per cent, with declines accelerating after the report, SiliconANGLE reported. Oracle, which has contracts with OpenAI valued in the billions of dollars, fell 5.5 per cent. CoreWeave dropped nearly 8 per cent, Intel 5.3 per cent and Nvidia 2.9 per cent, while AMD and Broadcom each slipped about 4 per cent and Super Micro Computer fell almost 5 per cent, according to SiliconANGLE; closing prices on Yahoo Finance show moves of the same size. The report was not the only weight: rising oil prices and Treasury yields also pressed on stocks, Yahoo Finance noted.

The reason the number matters is that it has been used as a yardstick against Anthropic, which is preparing its own listing. Anthropic was on track to generate annualised revenue of more than $65bn, Bloomberg reported in August, according to SiliconANGLE. Anthropic's figures include cloud-partner sales, which OpenAI's do not. Reuters, which has seen a leaked copy of Anthropic's prospectus, reported that it had $4.6bn of revenue in 2025 and losses of more than $42bn, SiliconANGLE said. On the measures now in circulation, the two companies' run rates are not like for like.

OpenAI's current valuation is $852bn, according to Yahoo Finance and SiliconANGLE, and its last round, of $122bn, closed in March. It is seeking to raise around $30bn more, though no term sheet has been finalised, CNBC reported, according to Yahoo Finance, which also said the company posted a net loss of $38.5bn in 2025 on $13.07bn of revenue. Investors have offered a valuation above $1.2tn in the meantime, Komposite reported last month. By our arithmetic, $852bn is about 17 times a $50bn run rate, against about 12 times the $70bn figure.

OpenAI confidentially filed its prospectus in June, and executives have indicated they are targeting a 2027 debut; Sam Altman, the chief executive, has ruled out a listing in 2026. A public listing could give Wall Street a clearer view of both companies' finances, including how sustainable their growth is, Reuters noted. Until then, investors are comparing run rates that the two companies calculate in different ways, and on Thursday they marked down the stocks most exposed to OpenAI.