Markets & Business
OpenAI tells investors revenue is some $20B below earlier reports, FT says
The Financial Times reports OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue is "approaching $50 billion," about $20 billion below the roughly $70 billion figure reported a week earlier.
A little over a week ago, it was reported that OpenAI’s annualized revenue was approaching $70 billion, a figure that would have made it competitive with Anthropic’s reported run rate. Now, the AI lab is said to have told investors that its real revenue is some $20 billion lower than that.
The Financial Times reports that OpenAI has told investors its annualized revenue is “approaching $50 billion.” The $70 billion figure had previously been reported by news outlets based on information shared with OpenAI investors, according to the FT, and was devised via “attempts by OpenAI’s own investors to produce a direct comparison with Anthropic’s annualised revenues.”
It’s worth noting that OpenAI and Anthropic calculate their annualized revenue differently — Anthropic counts sales made by its cloud partners, while OpenAI does not. TechCrunch reached out to OpenAI for comment.
The issue of OpenAI’s revenue has troubled the company as it tries to justify the scale of investment made on its behalf; the AI giant raised $122 billion in a single funding round in March. The company’s leaked 2025 financials earlier this year showed it had made about $13 billion but spent significantly more. OpenAI’s IPO, previously rumored to materialize this year, has been pushed off until early 2027.
Why it matters
A gap of some $20 billion between reported and actual revenue could complicate OpenAI’s efforts to justify its valuation to investors ahead of a now-delayed IPO.