OpenAI Misses Revenue and User Targets, Rattling AI-Sector Stocks

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ChatGPT Growth Stalls Below the Billion-User Threshold

OpenAI missed an internal goal of one billion weekly active users for ChatGPT by the end of 2025. Growth on the platform slowed materially in the final months of last year, with the company also recording subscriber defections as rival AI assistants and coding tools competed for market share. The failure to hit the landmark user milestone amplified investor unease about the sustainability of the company's $852 billion post-money valuation, which was established following a $122 billion funding round in March 2026.

Revenue Shortfalls Fuel CFO Concerns Over Infrastructure Obligations

OpenAI missed several consecutive monthly revenue targets earlier in 2026 after ceding ground to Anthropic in the enterprise and coding segments — two of the highest-margin verticals in the generative AI market. CFO Sarah Friar disclosed to senior company leaders that OpenAI may be unable to honor future computing contracts if revenue growth fails to accelerate. Friar also flagged reservations about the pace of the company's planned IPO, warning that OpenAI may struggle to meet the financial reporting standards required of a public company. CEO Sam Altman is pushing for an aggressive listing timeline that would value the company at more than $1 trillion, making it one of the largest public debuts in market history.

Altman and Friar Issue Joint Denial

In a joint statement emailed to media, Altman and Friar rejected the characterization of internal discord. "This is ridiculous. We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day," the pair said. OpenAI spokesperson Steve Sharpe separately described the Journal report as "clickbait," asserting that the business is "firing on all cylinders" and that enterprise momentum is "in the best place it has ever been."

AI Ecosystem Stocks Sell Off Sharply

The revelation triggered an immediate and broad-based decline among publicly traded companies with significant OpenAI exposure. SoftBank, one of the company's largest backers, fell 11.9% in early trading. Oracle, a cornerstone partner in the $500 billion Stargate infrastructure initiative, dropped 6.5%. CoreWeave, the cloud computing provider that holds a $22 billion contract with OpenAI, declined 7.1%, while Broadcom shed 4%. Microsoft and Nvidia — both deeply integrated into OpenAI's infrastructure stack — fell 1% and 3%, respectively.

"This raises questions about whether OpenAI can fulfill its massive infrastructure obligations," wrote Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge in a note to clients.

Spending Ambitions Under Scrutiny

The missed targets arrive against the backdrop of extraordinary capital commitments. OpenAI now plans to deploy approximately $600 billion on computing infrastructure through 2030, a figure revised down from Sam Altman's earlier $1.4 trillion estimate. Analysts at J.P. Morgan estimate that the four largest U.S. cloud service providers collectively will plow up to $660 billion into AI data centers in 2026 alone — a 66% year-over-year increase — underscoring how far the industry's spending race has outpaced near-term revenue generation.

OpenAI ended 2025 with $13.1 billion in full-year revenue after tripling year-over-year, and crossed $25 billion in annualized revenue by February 2026. Despite that trajectory, internal projections forecast a $14 billion net loss for 2026 as compute and operating costs continue to absorb the bulk of earnings.

IPO Ambitions Intact, But Path Narrows

OpenAI's highly anticipated public offering remains on the table, with Friar having signaled "really strong demand" from retail investors earlier in April. The company has indicated plans to reserve a portion of IPO shares for individual investors once it lists. However, the combination of missed benchmarks, internal disagreements on spending discipline, and the demanding reporting standards of public markets has introduced fresh uncertainty into the company's listing timeline.

The broader AI sector faces a pivotal test in the months ahead: whether surging infrastructure investment — backed by commitments from OpenAI, Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank, Amazon, and Nvidia — will generate commensurate commercial revenue before balance sheets face meaningful strain.

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