OpenAI's missed growth targets trigger steep sell‑offs in AI‑linked stocks
Key Points
- WSJ reported OpenAI missed its internal goal of 1 billion weekly ChatGPT users by end‑2025, reaching 900 million instead.
- Revenue targets for early 2026 were also missed, raising doubts about funding $600 billion in compute commitments.
- OpenAI dismissed the report as "clickbait" and claimed the business is "firing on all cylinders."
- Shares of Oracle (-7.7%), CoreWeave (-7.4%), SoftBank (-≈10%) and several chipmakers fell sharply.
- Anthropic now leads with $30 billion in annualized revenue, outpacing OpenAI's $25 billion run‑rate.
- Google’s Gemini model is gaining consumer market share, chipping away at ChatGPT growth.
- CFO Sarah Friar reportedly warned that revenue growth must accelerate to meet future funding needs.
- Internal debate over IPO timing: CFO favors 2027, while CEO Altman pushes for a 2026 listing.
The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI fell short of internal revenue and user‑growth goals, including a target of one billion weekly ChatGPT users by the end of 2025. The company dismissed the story as "clickbait" and said its business is "firing on all cylinders," but investors reacted sharply. Shares of Oracle, CoreWeave, SoftBank and several chip makers dropped between 5% and 10% as the market reassessed the massive compute spending commitments tied to OpenAI's projected revenue growth.
The Wall Street Journal disclosed that OpenAI missed key internal milestones, notably a goal of one billion weekly active ChatGPT users by the end of 2025. The company reported 900 million weekly users as of February 2026, a 125% year‑over‑year increase, but fell short of its own benchmark. Revenue targets for early 2026 were also missed, prompting concerns that the firm may struggle to fund its sprawling compute contracts.
OpenAI’s leadership pushed back, labeling the report "prime clickbait" and insisting the business is "firing on all cylinders." A joint statement from CEO Sam Altman and CFO Sarah Friar emphasized alignment within the company. Yet the market’s response was swift and decisive. Oracle, which signed a $300 billion five‑year cloud partnership with OpenAI, slid 7.7%. CoreWeave, holder of an $11.9 billion infrastructure deal, fell 7.4%. SoftBank, a major investor with a $60 billion commitment, dropped nearly 10% on the Tokyo exchange. Chipmakers Nvidia, Broadcom, AMD and Arm each declined between 2% and 6%.
The reaction reflects deeper anxieties about OpenAI’s financial architecture. The firm has pledged roughly $600 billion in compute spending through 2030, averaging $100 billion a year, while targeting $280 billion in revenue by that year. Current run‑rate sits near $25 billion, meaning the company would need to grow more than tenfold in four years to meet its projections. CFO Friar reportedly warned internally that insufficient revenue growth could jeopardize future funding for those contracts.
Competition is tightening the squeeze. Anthropic, once a partner, now eclipses OpenAI with $30 billion in annualized revenue and a leaner cost structure, spending about a quarter of OpenAI’s training budget. Google’s Gemini model has been gaining consumer market share, eroding ChatGPT’s growth momentum. Meanwhile, a wave of open‑weight models—from DeepSeek to Meta’s Llama—offers cheaper alternatives, challenging the notion that scale alone guarantees market dominance.
Investors are not merely reacting to a single earnings miss; they are reassessing an entire ecosystem built on OpenAI’s growth narrative. Oracle’s cloud partnership, CoreWeave’s multi‑billion contracts, SoftBank’s sizable stake, and the capital‑intensive plans of Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom all hinge on the assumption that AI infrastructure demand will expand rapidly enough to justify massive spend.
Amid these pressures, OpenAI’s internal dynamics appear unsettled. Sources say the CFO has questioned the timing of a public listing that CEO Altman is pushing for the fourth quarter of 2026, favoring a 2027 IPO instead. The company’s leadership continues to project confidence, but the market’s verdict on Tuesday suggests that confidence alone will not offset the financial gaps highlighted by the WSJ report.