Investors disagreed Thursday on whether OpenAI was reaching targets or falling short. The dispute centered on a definition: what counts as revenue. Reports that OpenAI’s annualized revenue fell well below earlier signals spread quickly, and AI stocks sank on the report.
On Bloomberg television, host Stephen Carroll framed the story: “Bloomberg understands OpenAI is expecting to reach or exceed $70 billion in annualized revenue by the end of the year, driven largely by growth in its enterprise business.” Bloomberg reporter Anthony Stephens then explained that the true net figure for OpenAI is around $50 billion. OpenAI is privately held; 24/7 Wall St. has not independently verified these numbers.
Two Defensible Numbers for One Company
Stephens explained, listing Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT ) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN): “This whole issue speaks to a mathematical granularity in what annualized revenue means to the different companies. OpenAI, what net means is all the money you have to pay to Microsoft, Amazon, all the routes to reach these LLMs to get business… the true number is around $50 billion.”, according to Bloomberg
An annualized figure, or run rate, projects recent sales across a full year. Gross run rate counts money from customers. Net deducts what OpenAI pays those cloud providers for infrastructure. Both describe the same business; only net shows how much the company keeps, essential for any profitability discussion.
This is ordinary for private company reporting. OpenAI has no obligation to standardize, so two valid figures coexist depending on who measures and why.
Enterprise Demand Sits at the Center of the Outlook
Stephens presented business customers as the foundation of the year-end target. “New reporting posits that by the end of the year we will still be at the $70 billion value rate, and that is mostly because it is going to be driven by enterprise AI demand, which is a new trend you are starting to see come through as companies use agentic AI, which has a higher revenue potential,” he said, according to Bloomberg. Agentic AI refers to software that carries out multistep tasks on a user’s behalf.
How a Private Company Moved Public Markets in One Day
Technology shares fell Thursday as confusion spread. Sentiment improved as the gross versus net distinction became clearer, and CNBC reported Friday that the “Nasdaq rises as tech shares rebound following sell-off.”
The Bloomberg segment also flagged international effects: a materially lower move in SoftBank shares in Asia, and an Australian listing pulled in favor of pursuing a US listing with private capital.
An unlisted company that files no quarterly reports and releases no standardized revenue definition triggered a one-day selloff in public technology shares because investors could not agree on what its headline number meant.
Vague Metrics, Real Money at Stake
Stephens closed with the broader issue: “There’s a lot of money at play. Some of these metrics are vague, and hopefully we will see more clarity from both Anthropic and OpenAI going forward on the metrics.”
Public companies report on a standardized basis so investors can compare businesses. Microsoft and Amazon file with the Securities and Exchange Commission quarterly using defined accounting rules. The largest AI developers are private and do not. As public market valuations lean more heavily on private AI company performance, that gap matters more. Bloomberg’s coverage shows how often these private figures now move the conversation around listed technology stocks.
When a private AI company’s revenue figure moves markets, the first question to ask is which figure it is, and how it was measured.