OpenAI Tells Backers Revenue Nears $50B, $20B Below Prior Report

OpenAI's annualized revenue is approaching $50 billion, roughly $20 billion short of the $70 billion figure that had circulated weeks earlier. The number comes from internal investor memos sent in late September, surfaced by the Financial Times and written up for the "Big Money" section by Futurism's Joe Wilkins.

"OpenAI has bad news for you: it ain't happening anytime soon," Wilkins writes, framing the gap against the thesis that AI companies are about to unlock trillions of dollars in profits.

The market absorbed it the same day: the Nasdaq fell 1.25%, the S&P 500 slipped 0.47%, and Nvidia dropped nearly 3%. Two researchers in our tracker also flagged the piece.

The Futurism write-up pairs the shortfall with a figure from Bain and Co.: the global AI industry needs to earn $6 trillion in annual revenue by 2031 to justify current data center spending. If OpenAI's actual run-rate is $20 billion lighter than the number everyone was pricing against, that benchmark gets further away, not closer.

OpenAI is private and the figures come from investor communications rather than audited books. Other outlets have reported the company still expects to hit or exceed $70 billion in annualized revenue by the end of 2026; the Futurism piece reads the leaked gap as the opposite of reassurance.