OpenAI races toward a blockbuster public offering. Yet cracks appear. The company missed key internal targets for ChatGPT users and revenue, stirring doubts inside the C-suite about funding its colossal data-center binge.
ChatGPT failed to hit one billion weekly active users by the end of 2025. That milestone remains elusive. Growth slowed sharply late last year, as Google’s Gemini grabbed share—jumping from 5.7% to 21.5% of generative AI web traffic while ChatGPT’s slice dropped to 64.5%, according to Wall Street Journal reporting. OpenAI also blew past multiple monthly revenue goals earlier this year, losing ground to Anthropic in coding tools and enterprise deals.
CFO Sarah Friar sounded alarms. She warned executives the firm might not cover future compute contracts without faster revenue ramps. That’s amid plans for $600 billion in AI infrastructure over four years—part of $1.4 trillion in signed pacts with Oracle ($300 billion), Microsoft ($250 billion), Amazon ($38 billion), AMD ($90 billion), and others. Friar has pushed back on a year-end IPO, clashing with CEO Sam Altman’s aggressive timeline for a potential $1 trillion debut, people familiar say.
Revenue hit $25 billion annualized by February 2026, up from $21.4 billion at 2025’s close—a blistering pace that outstripped Salesforce or Snowflake at similar scales, per The Information. Monthly run rate touched $2 billion. Yet losses mount. Projections show $14 billion red ink this year alone, with cumulative shortfalls nearing $143 billion through 2029, Deutsche Bank estimates via ZeroHedge. Inference costs still claim over half of sales; training eats the rest.
And the funding haul? A record $122 billion round in March lifted valuation to $852 billion, led by Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank. It buys time. But cash burn doubled prior estimates six months ago, investors learned privately. Gross margins undershot forecasts too.
Competition bites harder. Anthropic rocketed to a trillion-dollar secondary valuation, luring enterprise coders with Claude. Its revenue leaped from $9 billion to $30 billion on Google’s backing. OpenAI subscribers churn; side projects like Sora video (peaking at 6 million monthly users before fading) and Walmart’s in-chat shopping flopped, costing millions daily in compute, Forbes details. The company axed them to refocus on enterprise staples.
Internal rifts simmer. Friar now reports outside Altman’s direct chain on compute planning. Investors grumble—one early backer called OpenAI “deeply unfocused,” per Financial Times testimony in Elon Musk’s lawsuit, as noted on X by @ns123abc. Another mocked the TPBN talk-show buy as a distraction. Iconiq shifted bets to Anthropic; secondary trades price it higher.
Markets flinched Monday. Oracle plunged over 6%; Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom shed 3-5%. The AI chip stack wobbles—OpenAI anchors their backlogs. Oracle’s $553 billion order book leans half on this tenant. If payments falter, contracts renegotiate. Nvidia’s 2027 forecasts, AMD’s hardware hauls, CoreWeave’s leverage—all hinge here.
Altman and Friar pushed back in a statement to WSJ: “We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.” Defiance. But numbers don’t bend. ChatGPT sits at 900 million weekly users as of February, per TMGM. Enterprise counts 9 million paying business users, 600,000 customers—solid, yet not enough to outrun the burn.
Elon Musk’s lawsuit ramps up this week, alleging betrayal of OpenAI’s nonprofit roots. It spotlights the pivot to profit-chasing. Broader AI frenzy burns tens of billions industry-wide; revenues lag. OpenAI’s fate ties partners like Microsoft, which holds revenue through 2030 plus IP options after OpenAI breached to court Amazon.
So where next? Q4 IPO whispers persist, but Friar’s cautions echo 1980s junk bonds or 2000 telecom overbuilds—circular financing meets shaky demand. Revenue must double to justify the spend. Users need that billion mark. Without it, the trillion-dollar dream frays. Insiders watch closely. The checkbook thins.
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