OpenAI has told investors its annualized revenue is approaching $50 billion, roughly $20 billion less than the figure circulating a week earlier that would have put it on par with Anthropic. The revision matters because the company is trying to justify $122 billion raised in a single March round while an IPO has already slipped to early 2027.
The numbers and the comparison
The Financial Times reports the $50 billion figure came directly from the company. The earlier $70 billion number was not an official disclosure but rather an attempt by OpenAI’s own investors to construct a direct comparison with Anthropic’s annualized run rate. That comparison has now been walked back by the very people who would benefit from a higher number.
Different math different results
OpenAI and Anthropic calculate annualized revenue differently. Anthropic includes sales made by its cloud partners. OpenAI does not. The $70 billion figure appears to have been an investor-driven effort to normalize the two methodologies, not a restatement by the company itself. The gap between the two approaches is now explicitly quantified at $20 billion.
The funding context
Leaked 2025 financials showed about $13 billion in revenue against significantly higher spend. The $122 billion March raise was predicated on a growth trajectory that the new $50 billion annualized figure may or may not support. Investors are being asked to reconcile a run rate that is nearly four times last year’s actuals with a revenue definition that excludes partner channels.
The IPO timeline
An offering previously rumored for this year has been pushed to early 2027. The revenue revision does not explain the delay on its own, but it removes a convenient benchmark. Without the $70 billion comparison, the narrative of a company approaching Anthropic’s scale becomes harder to sustain in a prospectus.