FT: OpenAI's annualized revenue nears $50B, about $20B below the $70B investor figure
rohanpaul_ai · x · 2026-10-09
Per the Financial Times, OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue is nearing $50B—about $20B below the $70B figure investors had circulated.
The gap stems from accounting differences: Anthropic counts revenue from model sales via AWS and Google Cloud, while OpenAI excludes it. To compare fairly, OpenAI investors added their own estimate of those cloud sales to OpenAI's $30B July figure, yielding $40B.
OpenAI then reported 70%+ growth since July, but investors applied that rate to their adjusted $40B base. Since OpenAI measured the 70% from its own $30B July figure, the correct September number is just under $50B—the extra $10B investors injected in July compounded into a $20B overstatement.
Even at the lower figure, OpenAI's annualized revenue still grew $20B between July and end of September.
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