OpenAI Missed Revenue and User Targets, CFO Warned on Compute Funding, WSJ Reports
OpenAI fell short of multiple monthly revenue targets earlier in 2026 and missed an internal goal of reaching one billion weekly active ChatGPT users by year-end, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, with CFO Sarah Friar warning colleagues that slowing revenue growth could impair the company's ability to fund future compute agreements.
The Journal attributed the revenue shortfalls in part to OpenAI losing ground to Anthropic in coding and enterprise markets — two segments that have become central commercial battlegrounds for AI adoption. OpenAI has faced particular pressure in coding, where Anthropic's Claude has earned strong adoption among developers, and in enterprise, where procurement teams are increasingly running competitive evaluations. The report does not specify the dollar magnitude of the missed targets or the gap between current weekly active users and the one-billion benchmark.
Friar separately told executives and board members that OpenAI still lacks the financial infrastructure that public-market regulators require — a disclosure that directly complicates CEO Sam Altman's preferred IPO timeline. The Journal also reported that board members have taken a harder look at OpenAI's data center agreements and raised doubts about Altman's push to acquire additional computing capacity, putting the company's infrastructure expansion strategy under internal scrutiny at the same moment it is pressing hardest for more of it.
OpenAI and Friar responded jointly. The company called the Journal's characterization of internal division "ridiculous" — a denial that did not dispute the underlying revenue and user figures.
Markets responded immediately. Oracle fell roughly 4 percent on the day, reflecting its exposure to OpenAI's infrastructure spending through a cloud partnership announced in 2025. Broadcom, AMD, CoreWeave, and SoftBank also declined as investors recalibrated assumptions about whether current AI infrastructure spending rates are sustainable if anchor customers like OpenAI face revenue headwinds.
The report landed on the same day Microsoft and OpenAI disclosed an amendment to their commercial partnership, creating a compound picture of OpenAI's positioning ahead of a potential public offering. The Microsoft amendment had been framed by both companies as a restructuring that would give OpenAI greater commercial flexibility; the Journal's reporting adds context to the internal financial pressures that make that flexibility consequential.
OpenAI closed a $40 billion funding round in March 2026 at a $300 billion valuation, led by SoftBank. The round included contingencies tied to OpenAI's conversion from a nonprofit-controlled structure to a for-profit public benefit corporation — a process that remains ongoing. Friar's comments about public-market financial infrastructure suggest that conversion has not resolved all the structural preparation an IPO would require.
The Journal did not report a revised IPO timeline or a specific revenue figure OpenAI is targeting before proceeding.
