OpenAI says revenue run rate is $50 billion, not $68 billion: Oracle falls 5.8%, CoreWeave 7.8%

Shares of the companies that build and host artificial intelligence fell sharply on Thursday after OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was roughly $50 billion at the end of September. A figure of $68 billion had been widely reported late last month. CNBC confirmed the lower number, and said the Financial Times reported it first. Quartz, TechCrunch, Investor's Business Daily and Morningstar all carried the story.

The Nasdaq 100 was down about 1.4% in late afternoon trading, while the Dow was slightly higher. In other words, this was a selloff in one corner of the market, not a broad one.

How the AI names traded

Quotes from Nasdaq.com, delayed up to 15 minutes. CNBC also reported Intel and Super Micro Computer down about 6% earlier in the session.

The number behind the number

CNBC's source said the $68 billion figure included gross revenue from OpenAI's partners. That is a difference in counting, not a collapse in sales: the company also told investors its run rate grew 77% in the third quarter, and that its enterprise business grew 107%. But the gap is real in one place, which is what investors pay for each dollar.

Our arithmetic, using the valuations in our earlier coverage:

The gap between the two figures is $18 billion, or 26% of the higher number. (The Financial Times headline put the shortfall at about $20 billion against earlier signals; we use CNBC's two figures.) The $1.4 trillion target comes from Bloomberg's report on the roughly $30 billion round now in early talks, which we covered on September 29. CNBC says no term sheet has been finalized. The same $1.4 trillion that looked like about 21 times revenue now looks like 28 times.

Why Oracle and CoreWeave fell harder than Nvidia

We did not find a company statement tying any of these stocks to OpenAI's number, and CNBC does not offer one either, so the following is our reading of the pattern, not a reported cause. The biggest drops are in the names whose revenue depends on customers continuing to spend heavily on computing capacity, and the smaller one is in the chip designer with the broadest customer list. That is consistent with traders marking down how much OpenAI can afford to commit, but it is a pattern in the prices, not a confirmed explanation.

The financing side is where it gets concrete. SoftBank sold $11.1 billion of bonds last month at coupons up to 9.75% to fund the final $10 billion of its OpenAI investment, as we reported. Interest on that debt does not shrink when the revenue figure does.

The comparison with Anthropic is not like for like

CNBC says the gross-versus-net distinction matters because it makes OpenAI more directly comparable with Anthropic. In August, CNBC reports, Anthropic told investors its run rate was $65 billion at the end of July. That is a different month and a different company, and we have not seen either company's methodology, so treat the $50 billion and $65 billion as two figures from two investor presentations, not a ranking. For Anthropic's audited history, see our story on its prospectus.

What to watch

• Whether OpenAI's new funding round closes near $30 billion at $1.4 trillion, or the terms move. CNBC says the talks are early.
• The IPO timeline. CNBC reports OpenAI filed confidentially in June and executives have pointed to 2027.
• The next quarterly reports from Oracle, Nvidia and CoreWeave, where capital-spending and backlog commentary will show whether customer commitments changed.

Sources: CNBC; Financial Times, Quartz, TechCrunch, Investor's Business Daily and Morningstar (headlines); Nasdaq.com quotes. Multiples are our arithmetic from the figures cited. This is market information, not investment advice.