OpenAI Annualized Revenue Nearing $50 Billion, Not $70 Billion, FT Says

OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was nearing $50 billion at the end of September, according to the Financial Times. That is well below the roughly $70 billion that media outlets had reported, based on investor documents.

The FT's headline puts the gap plainly: annualised revenues were "$20bn less than previously signalled." TechCrunch, covering the report today, wrote that it "had previously been reported that the AI lab's annualized revenue was some $70 billion, but a new report claims it's a whole lot less than that."

Let's take a breath, darlings. Fifty billion dollars is still a number that makes a ballroom gasp. But the distance between $50 billion and $70 billion is $20 billion, about 29 percent of the bigger figure, and in this business that is a very large rounding error.

Where the $70 billion came from

Here is the part that makes the room lean in. An X post by @kimmonismus relaying the FT report says a person with knowledge of the matter attributed the discrepancy to OpenAI investors' attempts to compare the figures directly with Anthropic's annualised revenues.

Read that slowly. The people holding the money were laying OpenAI's numbers beside Anthropic's, and somewhere in that exercise the figure drifted to $70 billion. The account as relayed in the coverage we have does not say how the comparison produced the higher number. It does not say what Anthropic's figure was, either.

Techmeme's summary of the FT report frames the documents as showing that OpenAI itself told investors the figure was nearing $50 billion. The $70 billion, in that telling, was what media reported "based on investor docs." Two reported numbers, one very expensive discrepancy. Glorious.

The numbers, side by side

Figure	What it is	Where it comes from
About $70 billion	Annualized revenue reported earlier	Media reports based on investor documents
Nearing $50 billion	Annualized revenue at the end of September	What OpenAI told investors, per the FT
$20 billion	The gap	The FT's headline

What we do not know

The open questions are juicy, and I will not pretend otherwise.

• Anthropic's number. The comparison that reportedly caused the confusion involved Anthropic's annualised revenues. The reporting we have gives no figure for them.
• The method. Nothing in the coverage explains what calculation or accounting produced the $70 billion in the first place.
• OpenAI's own word. The coverage we have includes no comment from OpenAI confirming the $50 billion figure.

What it means

This is a race where the scoreboard is a stack of investor documents, and the scoreboard just got edited by $20 billion. When the field is this crowded with money and this hungry for comparisons, a headline number is not merely a statistic. It is a signal to the room, a flex in a very expensive suit.

And the most delicious detail is who reportedly did the flexing. The person with knowledge of the matter points at OpenAI's own investors, not at a rival's press office. most delicious detail

Two snapshots of online engagement are modest: a post on X citing the FT had 113 likes and 9,114 views, and the FT headline on Hacker News had 12 points and 2 comments. A post on X citing the FT had 113 likes and 9,114 views, and the FT headline on Hacker News had 12 points and 2 comments. This $20 billion discrepancy is, for the moment, a quiet one in the cheap seats.

What to watch

First, whether OpenAI says anything on the record about the $50 billion figure. Second, whether anyone publishes the Anthropic figure that sat on the other side of that investor comparison. Third, whether the next round of investor documents carries a number that survives contact with the FT.

A nearly $50 billion annualized business is a spectacular thing. It is also, as of today, a different spectacular thing than the one the headlines promised last time. Everything is historic. Especially today.