OpenAI Confirms $50 Billion Revenue Run Rate, Not $68 Billion, and AI Stocks Sell Off
OpenAI confirmed annualized revenue of about $50 billion at the end of September, below the $68 billion that had circulated. The gap is partly a reporting basis, but AI stocks sold off anyway: CoreWeave fell 7.3%, Oracle 5.5% and Nvidia 3.1%.
AI stocks sold off Thursday after OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was about $50 billion at the end of September, well below the $68 billion figure that had circulated widely. The drop hit the companies most exposed to OpenAI's spending, including Nvidia, Oracle and CoreWeave, as investors reassessed revenue expectations and the infrastructure build-out that depends on them.
Why $50 billion is not the same as $68 billion
The raw gap is $18 billion, or about 26% of the earlier figure. Earlier reports of the shortfall put it nearer $20 billion, so the exact size depends on which number you start from. But OpenAI says the two figures are not like for like. The $68 billion number included gross revenue from OpenAI's partners, a basis chosen to make it more comparable with Anthropic's reported figures. The $50 billion figure reflects a different reporting basis.
That means the difference should not be read as a confirmed $18 billion revenue decline. It is mostly a change in what is being counted. The market reacted anyway, because the $68 billion number had become a reference point for how fast AI demand was growing.
| Metric | Figure | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Earlier reported run rate | $68B | Included gross partner revenue |
| Confirmed run rate | $50B | Different reporting basis, end of September |
| Total run-rate growth, Q3 | 77% | Per OpenAI's investor presentation |
| Enterprise run-rate growth, Q3 | 107% | Faster than the total, driven by business customers |
Enterprise growing faster than the overall business is the part of the presentation that supports the bull case. OpenAI did not disclose the dollar amounts behind the growth rates.
Who got hit
The sell-off spread across AI chips, cloud and data-center names. Nvidia, Oracle and CoreWeave sit closest to OpenAI's computing contracts, and they took the largest reported declines. AMD, Arm and others in the AI trade were also lower.
| Company | Ticker | Move Thursday |
|---|---|---|
| CoreWeave | CRWV | -7.26% |
| Oracle | ORCL | -5.53% |
| NVIDIA | NVDA | -3.07% |
| AMD | AMD | Lower, no figure provided |
| Arm Holdings | ARM | Lower, no figure provided |
Moves are intraday or late-session figures and may differ from final closing prices. Oracle was down 5.08% at 2:27 PM ET in an earlier quote, so its percentage changed as the session went on.
The valuation and IPO angle
The revenue reset lands as investors scrutinize OpenAI's $852 billion valuation. The company confidentially filed a prospectus in June, and executives have pointed to a possible 2027 listing. A lower headline run rate does not change that timetable by itself, but it raises the bar for the growth story that a public offering would need to support.
OpenAI is also reported to be exploring a new funding round of around $30 billion. Those talks are preliminary, with no term sheet, and the terms could change. It raised $122 billion in March.
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