OpenAI misses targets as $600 billion compute obligations face IPO scrutiny

OpenAI missed internal revenue and user targets while preparing for a possible public listing, according to people familiar with company planning cited in multiple reports. The shortfall ties ChatGPT growth to future compute commitments that The Wall Street Journal placed at about $600 billion. Supplier shares moved because Oracle, CoreWeave and SoftBank have become public-market gauges for OpenAI's demand.

OpenAI later pushed back against the growth concerns, saying its consumer and enterprise businesses remain strong, demand from business customers continues to grow, and more computing capacity remains central to improving the product.

The growth miss

The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI missed an internal goal of reaching one billion weekly active ChatGPT users by the end of 2025 and also missed revenue targets for ChatGPT. Reuters reported that OpenAI also missed multiple monthly revenue targets this year after Anthropic gained ground in coding and enterprise markets.

OpenAI rejected the idea that its leadership is split over the spending plan. "This is ridiculous," CEO Sam Altman and Friar said in a joint statement to Reuters and CNBC. "We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day."

The company then broadened that response in a statement reported by Bloomberg. OpenAI said its consumer and enterprise businesses were "firing on all cylinders," described the Journal story as "prime clickbait," and said the internal mood remained positive. It also said demand from business customers and its nascent advertising business continued to grow, while computing capacity remained the "great enabler" for a better product experience.

The compute bill

Altman has spent the past year securing computing capacity at large scale. The Journal reported that those deals put OpenAI on the hook for about $600 billion in future spending commitments. CNBC said the company has also closed a $122 billion funding round at an $852 billion post-money valuation, with some of that funding tied to specific partner agreements.

CNBC listed several OpenAI-linked commitments, including Oracle's reported five-year $300 billion computing deal, Nvidia pledges to the startup, a major Amazon partnership and an expansion of an existing $38 billion Amazon spending agreement by $100 billion. Those contracts would be central in any public filing, where investors would compare growth, cash flow and partner concentration.

The market reaction

Public markets moved first through suppliers. CNBC reported that Oracle dropped more than 6% Tuesday, CoreWeave fell 7%, Nvidia, Broadcom and AMD declined roughly 3% to 5%, and SoftBank sank about 10% in Asia. Reuters later reported a smaller morning move for CoreWeave, down 2.8%, and said Oracle traded at $167.30 after a 3.4% decline.

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Anurag Rana said the miss could affect the broader AI infrastructure system, with Oracle most exposed to risk against its financial goals. CoreWeave pushed back on single-customer risk, telling NBC News that OpenAI is one of several partners, alongside Meta, Anthropic, Microsoft and Google.

The IPO standard

A separate partnership change with Microsoft would also shape any listing. Microsoft announced Monday that OpenAI can now serve products across any cloud provider, while Microsoft keeps a non-exclusive license to OpenAI models and products through 2032. Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI, and OpenAI's payments to Microsoft continue through 2030, subject to a cap.

The new Microsoft terms give OpenAI more room to sell through other clouds while leaving more of the burden on OpenAI's own execution. An IPO filing would put revenue, churn, compute contracts, partner obligations and internal controls in one document. The pressure is already visible in supplier stocks and data-center contracts.

Update, 8:55 a.m. PDT: This article has been updated to reflect OpenAI's reaction.

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Marcus Schuler

San Francisco

Editor-in-Chief and founder of Implicator.ai. Former ARD correspondent and senior broadcast journalist with 10+ years covering tech. Writes daily briefings on policy and market developments. Based in San Francisco. E-mail: [email protected]