❯ OpenAI tells investors annualized revenue is about $50 billion, below the $68 billion figure that had circulated, and Nvidia, Oracle and CoreWeave shares fall

Nearly $20 billion shortOpenAI said in an investor presentation that its annualized revenue was roughly $50 billion at the end of September. CNBC confirmed the figure on October 8 and said it was lower than the $68 billion widely reported late last month. The Financial Times reported it first. Annualized revenue extrapolates the current pace over a year; it is not money already booked.

Two numbers, two definitionsA person familiar with the matter told CNBC that the $68 billion figure included gross revenue from OpenAI’s partners, to help investors make a more direct comparison with Anthropic. Anthropic told investors in August that its annualized run rate hit $65 billion at the end of July. In the same presentation, OpenAI cited 77% total run-rate growth in the third quarter and 107% for its enterprise business.

The compute chain sold off togetherAfter the report, Nvidia fell 3% on Thursday, Oracle nearly 6% and CoreWeave nearly 8%; AMD and Broadcom each lost 4% and Intel 5%. All of them are chip and compute companies. The market ties their order outlook to the revenue of the leading model companies, so when OpenAI’s number moves, this supply chain is repriced first.

Valuation pressure before the IPOCNBC put OpenAI’s valuation at $852 billion and said it confidentially filed a prospectus in June, with executives signaling a 2027 debut; the company is also in early talks on a new round of about $30 billion, with no term sheet finalized. Before a listing, revenue has to be examined on one consistent basis, and the wider the gap between circulated and self-reported figures, the weaker the company’s hand on pricing.

▮ SIGNALThe two leading model companies are hard to compare because nobody agrees whether sales made through cloud providers count as their own; prospectuses will force them onto the same arithmetic.