OpenAI’s $50 Billion Run Rate Hits the AI Trade

U.S. stock futures rose Friday after OpenAI’s $50 billion revenue run-rate knocked AI stocks lower Thursday. S&P 500 futures were up 0.3%, Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.49%, and Dow futures gained 105 points, or 0.2%.

The ChatGPT maker told investors its yearly sales pace at the end of September was about $50 billion. A widely circulated $68 billion figure had included partners’ gross sales, and that gap was enough to hit Nvidia, Oracle and CoreWeave and to help pull a $5 billion Australian IPO.

OpenAI Told Investors $50 Billion, Not the $68 Billion Figure

OpenAI put the $50 billion figure in an investor pack, according to a person familiar with the materials. The same person said the $68 billion number that moved around late last month included gross revenue from partners, a restatement meant to line the company up against Anthropic.

Nothing in those materials says customers walked away from a block of sales. OpenAI records its share of partner deals. Anthropic records gross sales through cloud partners. Investors who wanted one scoreboard added that partner layer back onto OpenAI, then treated the fatter total as the going rate for chips, cloud contracts and new listings.

Anthropic told investors its own annualized revenue run rate hit $65 billion at the end of July. On OpenAI’s books, the September pace sits below that mark. On the grossed-up scoreboard, OpenAI had looked larger. The comparison that was supposed to show who was ahead flipped when the company used its own math.

Daniel Newman, chief executive of The Futurum Group, wrote that he wished he was more surprised. The restatement fits a tape that has been stretching private run-rates so public chip stocks can keep trading as if the two labs used the same ruler.

A run rate stretches a recent sales pace across 12 months. It is not a year of closed books, and it is not a contract for the next 12 months. Late last month, OpenAI told investors the pace had climbed more than 70% since the third quarter began. The pack that circulated Thursday put total run-rate growth in that quarter at 77%, with enterprise at 107%.

OpenAI declined to comment. The $50 billion print is still a private-company number, shown to backers, then leaked into a public market that prices Nvidia and Oracle every minute.

107% Enterprise Growth and a Year-End $70 Billion Target

The September pace looks small only against the restated $68 billion yardstick. Against OpenAI’s own history, it is a straight-up climb. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar wrote in January that annual recurring revenue topped $20 billion in 2025, after $6 billion in 2024 and $2 billion in 2023, and called it growth “never-before-seen” at that scale.

Compute followed the same curve, she wrote: 0.2 gigawatts in 2023, 0.6 gigawatts in 2024, and about 1.9 gigawatts in 2025. Friar’s point was blunt. More chips in those years would have meant faster adoption, not a slower bill.

OPENAI’S PUBLISHED RUN-RATE LADDER

1. 2023: Annual recurring revenue of $2 billion, per Friar’s January note.
2. 2024: Annual recurring revenue of $6 billion.
3. 2025: Annual recurring revenue of more than $20 billion, with about 1.9 gigawatts of compute.
4. March 31, 2026: OpenAI says it is generating $2 billion of revenue a month as it closes a $122 billion round.
5. August 2026: The yearly pace is above $40 billion, per people familiar with the company’s figures at the time.
6. End of September 2026: The investor pack puts the yearly pace at about $50 billion, with 77% total run-rate growth in the third quarter and 107% in enterprise.
7. December 2026: People familiar with fundraising talks say the company expects the yearly pace to reach or exceed $70 billion.

On March 31, OpenAI said it had closed a round with $122 billion in committed capital in March at an $852 billion post-money valuation, with Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank anchoring and Microsoft staying in. Friar told viewers last week that the company remains “very well capitalized.”

The next round is still a negotiation. OpenAI has been in talks to raise at least $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation, and no term sheet has been finalized. That price tag is about 28 times the September run-rate. The company confidentially filed for a public listing in June, with executives pointing to 2027. In September, Chief Executive Sam Altman said “right now would be an ill-advised moment” to go public.

Why Chipmakers Sold a Private Company’s Slide Deck

Public investors cannot buy OpenAI. They can sell the companies that are supposed to collect on its build. Thursday’s session did that work in a few hours, on a second down day for the Nasdaq Composite after it had climbed to fresh records earlier in the week.

THURSDAY MOVES IN AI-LINKED SHARES

The Nasdaq Composite dropped more than 1%, its largest one-day loss since mid-August. The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.4%. The S&P 500 lost 0.5%. The Dow ended slightly above flat. As Friday’s session approached, the S&P 500 was on course for a weekly gain of 0.6%, with the Dow and the Nasdaq Composite about flat for the week.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 fell more than 1%. SoftBank, which holds a large OpenAI stake, declined over 6%. South Korean markets were closed for a holiday.

If we have a number of days like this… we could see a real rout in AI-related names. That could sour investors.

Kristina Hooper, chief market strategist at Man Group, on Closing Bell: Overtime

The louder problem is not that OpenAI’s customers vanished overnight. It is whether a $50 billion sales pace can still fund the chip and data-center bills already promised, especially once algorithms have sold the headline and left the partner-gross explanation for the afternoon note.

Firmus, Nvidia and a $5 Billion IPO That Never Priced

That funding test showed up first in Sydney, not in Santa Clara. Firmus, a data-center operator backed by Nvidia, Coatue Management, Blackstone and Jane Street, withdrew a $5 billion initial public offering, citing market volatility and conditions, and said it would seek private capital instead.

The listing would have been the second-largest new share sale in Australia. Shares had been marketed at A$11, implying an equity value of $30.6 billion, nearly triple the $10.5 billion valuation Firmus reached after a fundraising round at the start of August.

THE OFFER THAT DID NOT PRICE

• The raise: Firmus had planned a $5 billion IPO and will now pursue private funding and other public or private options.
• The price tag: A$11 a share implied a $30.6 billion equity value, nearly triple the $10.5 billion mark from early August.
• The footprint: Two sites are online in Melbourne and Singapore, with five more planned across Asia-Pacific, using modular “AI factories” and in-house cooling kit.
• The backers: Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone and Jane Street sit on the cap table that now has to fund the next build without a public book.

The board therefore concluded that proceeding with the offer was not in the best interests of the company and its shareholders.

Firmus, company statement

Proceeds were meant to buy more GPUs and expand the map. Public buyers would not pay A$11 for a company that still has two live sites and a valuation that nearly tripled in two months. The private labs can still raise. The listed layer that is supposed to install their chips just learned the window is narrower than the slide decks said.

Individual Investors Turned Bullish Into the Break

The same week professionals marked down the AI complex, the American Association of Individual Investors found Main Street getting more optimistic. The survey for the week ending October 7 put the bullish share at 40.3% for the week ending October 7, the highest since mid-July, up from 34.6% the prior week and above the 37.5% historical average.

AAII SIX-MONTH OUTLOOK

• Bullish: 40.3%, up from 34.6% the prior week, against a 37.5% long-run average.
• Bearish: 39.0%, down from 46.5% the prior week and from 53.3% in the week ending September 16, which was the highest since May 2025.
• Neutral: 20.8%, up from 18.9%, against a 31.0% long-run average.

Bears last sat below their 31.5% historical average in January 2026. Households are not marking OpenAI’s partner-gross math to market. They are looking at six months of stocks after a year of AI-led highs, and they turned friendlier just as the listed buildout flinched.

An 800 MHz Portfolio for Starlink Mobile

A separate after-hours tape made the session look even messier. SpaceX shares rose 2% in extended trading after Grain Management announced a definitive agreement to sell its nationwide 800 MHz spectrum portfolio to the rocket company, subject to FCC approval and other closing conditions.

Grain said the licenses will support satellite direct-to-device service so Starlink Mobile can reach customers from the ground and from space. SpaceX has said the low-band layer is meant to push signal through walls, while its global 2 GHz mid-band holds the capacity. Grain bought the block from T-Mobile in August for $2.9 billion in cash plus other licenses. The new sale’s price was not disclosed in Grain’s announcement.

T-Mobile dropped 6% after hours, AT&T fell almost 7%, and Verizon lost more than 6%, as traders priced a new competitor that does not need a store on every corner.

The 10-Year Yield Holds Near Multi-Decade Highs

The AI print did not land in a cheap-money tape. The 10-year Treasury yield was at 5.227% Friday, down less than one basis point, and the 30-year yield was little changed at 5.608%. Both stayed near multi-decade highs as traders weighed sticky inflation and heavy government borrowing.

Swiss private bank UBP raised its estimated fair-value range for the 10-year to 4.75% to 5.25% in its October outlook and kept a four-year neutral duration, saying it prefers income from holdings over a directional bet. UBP also said it does not expect the Federal Reserve to cut rates before the second half of 2027.

Oil eased after President Donald Trump wrote that the United States “will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections” and was having “productive discussions” with Iran. Brent crude for December fell 0.77% to $103.48 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate for November fell 0.68% to $90.87.

Friday’s calendar still held Delta Air Lines results before the bell and October consumer sentiment in the morning. People familiar with OpenAI’s fundraising talks say the company still expects its yearly pace to reach or exceed $70 billion by December, even as it shops a round of at least $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation. Public buyers just showed what they will not pay. They left Firmus on the table at A$11.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and market analysis for information only. It is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, bond, fund or private-company interest, or a forecast of OpenAI, Firmus, SpaceX or any listed name. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser or investment professional who can review their own holdings, time horizon and risk limits before acting. Figures, ratings, yields, oil prices, futures levels and deal statuses reflect the company statements, investor materials and market prints cited here and can change in the next session.