OpenAI Told FT $70B Revenue Figure Was Net, Differing From Earlier Accounts

OpenAI told the Financial Times that the previously circulated $70 billion annualized revenue figure was net revenue, differing from earlier explanations that cloud partner accounting inflated the number. The FT had reported that financial documents shared with investors put the company's revenue run rate near $50 billion at the end of September, about $20 billion below earlier reports.

The earlier FT account attributed the discrepancy to investors adjusting OpenAI's figures to compare them with Anthropic's, which includes sales through AWS and Google Cloud that OpenAI excludes. CNBC separately reported that the $70 billion figure included revenue sharing from large partners, while the $50 billion figure stripped out those partnership deals.

Bloomberg subsequently reported that OpenAI expects to reach or exceed $70 billion in annualized revenue by the end of 2026, driven largely by enterprise growth. That forecast helped the AI trade recover on Friday: Oracle rebounded about 4.6% after falling about 5.5% on Thursday, while OpenAI trading on Liquid largely recovered its earlier decline.

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