OpenAI misses revenue, new user goals in painful stumble ahead of blockbuster IPO: report

Nypost · Apr 28, 2026 · 581 words · By Taylor Herzlich

AI spending bubble risk Financial instability and IPO readiness

open_in_new Read the original article: https://nypost.com/2026/04/28/business/openai-misses-revenue-new-user-goals-in-p…

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Loaded Language 70% confidence

Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.

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Name Calling / Labeling 50% confidence

Attaching a negative label to a person or group to reject them without evidence.

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Doubt 60% confidence

Questioning the credibility of a source or claim without providing evidence.

fact_checkFact-Check Results

12 claims extracted and verified against multiple sources including cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia.

check_circle Corroborated 4

info Single Source 4

help Insufficient Evidence 2

schedule Pending 2

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“OpenAI fell short of internal revenue and new user goals ahead of a potential IPO later this year – raising concerns about whether it will be able to offset massive spending on AI, according to a report.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple web search results report that OpenAI missed internal goals for revenue and new users, leading to concerns about funding massive AI spending ahead of a potential IPO.

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web search NEUTRAL — OpenAI has fallen short of its goals for new users and revenue in recent months, sparking concern among some company leaders over whether it can support its extensive data-center spending, the ...
https://www.reuters.com/business/openai-falls-short-revenue-…

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web search NEUTRAL — OpenAI fell short of internal revenue and new user goals ahead of a potential IPO later this year - raising concerns about whether it will be able to offset massive spending on AI, according to ...
https://nypost.com/2026/04/28/business/openai-misses-revenue…

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web search NEUTRAL — OpenAI is facing financial concerns. The company missed user and revenue targets recently. This has led to worries about funding its large data center expenses. The Chief Financial Officer has voiced …
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/openai-…

info

“Shares in tech firms Oracle and SoftBank fell 3.4% and 11.3%, respectively, Tuesday as the report reheated fears of an AI spending bubble similar to the dot-com crisis of the early 2000s.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The web search results mention a drop in SoftBank's shares (plunged 9.9%) and mention Oracle and CoreWeave falling, but they do not specify that Oracle and SoftBank fell exactly 3.4% and 11.3% on a specific Tuesday due to AI bubble fears. The evidence is insufficient to confirm the precise percentages and date cited in the claim.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The following is a list of events of the year 2025 in the United States. Following his election victory in November 2024, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States and be…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_in_the_United_States

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The following tables list the largest mergers and acquisitions by decade of transaction. Transaction values are given in the US dollar value for the year of the merger, adjusted for inflation. As of F…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_mergers_and_ac…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in the United States in 2024 since protests escalated on April 17, beginning with the Columbia University campus occupation. Student p…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pro-Palestinian_protes…

+ 3 more evidence sources

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“The disappointing results have reportedly sowed doubt among top leadership, as Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has raised concerns that the company might not be able to pay for future computing contracts if its growth doesn’t speed up, the Wall Street Journal reported late Monday.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple web search results confirm that CFO Sarah Friar expressed concern that the company might not afford future computing contracts if revenue growth slows.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Sarah Jane Friar (born 24 December 1972) is an Irish-American business executive, who has been the chief financial officer (CFO) of OpenAI since June 2024. She was the chief executive officer of Amer…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Friar

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The following is a list of notable former employees of McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm founded in 1926. This group is often referred to as a group in its own right. According to the c…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_employees_of_Mc…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — OpenAI Global, LLC is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research organization consisting of a for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC) and a nonprofit foundation, headquartered in San Franci…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI

+ 3 more evidence sources

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“OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, meanwhile, has signed the firm up for $600 billion in future spending commitments on the idea that extra data-center capacity will fuel ChatGPT’s growth, sources told the WSJ.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The web search results confirm that OpenAI locked in roughly $600 billion in future data-center spending under Altman's thesis. However, the evidence does not confirm that Sam Altman *personally signed* the commitment, only that the spending was locked in.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — GPT-5 is a multimodal large language model developed by OpenAI and the fifth in its series of generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) foundation models. Preceded in the series by GPT-4, it was launch…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPT-5

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — On November 17, 2023, OpenAI's board of directors ousted co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman. In an official post on the company's website, it was stated that "the board no longer has confidence…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_Sam_Altman_from_Ope…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Samuel Harris Altman (born April 22, 1985) is an American entrepreneur who has been the chief executive officer (CEO) of the AI company OpenAI since 2019. Altman attended Stanford University for two y…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman

+ 3 more evidence sources

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“In the meantime, the firm has missed an internal goal of 1 billion weekly active ChatGPT users by the end of last year; missed a yearly revenue target for ChatGPT; missed multiple monthly revenue targets this year; and struggled with subscriber defection rates, the report said.”

CORROBORATED

The web search results confirm that OpenAI missed user and revenue targets, aligning with the claim's details regarding missed goals.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI. It was released in November 2022. It uses large language models—specifically generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs)—to …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The usage of ChatGPT in education has sparked considerable debate and exploration. ChatGPT is a chatbot based on large language models (LLMs) that was released by OpenAI in November 2022. ChatGPT's ad…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT_in_education

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — There have been multiple incidents where interaction with a large language model (LLM) chatbot has been cited as a direct or contributing factor in a person's suicide or other fatal outcome. In some c…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_linked_to_chatbots

+ 3 more evidence sources

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“OpenAI and News Corp, which owns The Post, have a content-licensing deal.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple web search results confirm that OpenAI entered into an agreement with News Corp to integrate content from The Wall Street Journal and other properties into its AI platform.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — X.AI Corp., doing business as xAI, is an American company working in the area of artificial intelligence (AI), social media and technology that is a wholly owned subsidiary of American aerospace compa…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XAI_(company)

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — X Corp. is an American technology company headquartered in Bastrop, Texas. Established by Elon Musk in 2023 as the successor to Twitter, Inc., it is a wholly owned subsidiary of xAI since March 28, 20…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Corp.

+ 3 more evidence sources

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“OpenAI also recently launched ChatGPT-5.5, a powerful model that exceeded industry standards, and is cutting down on costs by scrapping projects like its AI video app Sora.”

SINGLE SOURCE

Multiple web search results mention the release of 'ChatGPT-5' or 'GPT-5' as a recent event. However, the evidence does not provide details about it 'exceeding industry standards' or explicitly state that the company is 'cutting down on costs by scrapping projects like its AI video app Sora.'

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web search NEUTRAL — ChatGPT-5 is OpenAI’s latest flagship model; unlike older versions, GPT-5 b.We’re thrilled to bring you news of a breakthrough in generative AI: OpenAI has unveiled ChatGPT-5, a smarter, more capable …
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/openai-launches-chatgpt-5-her…

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web search NEUTRAL — ChatGPT OpenAI has decided to take artificial intelligence to a next level with the release of GPT-5. The date for the release of GPT-5 is not officially announced yet but the CEO of OpenAI recently c…
https://blog.pregrad.in/chatgpt-openai-is-openai-launching-n…

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web search NEUTRAL — OpenAI releases GPT-5 as AI race accelerates. ChatGPT-5 is rolling out free to all users of the AI tool, which is used by nearly 700 million people weekly, OpenAI said.
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/openai-releases…

info

“But the company has signed up for so much computing power in the coming years that it expects to burn through the $122 billion in funding in just three years, according to the Journal.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The web search results mention OpenAI's massive spending commitments, but none of the provided snippets specify the exact figure of '$122 billion' or the 'three years' timeframe as stated in the claim.

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web search NEUTRAL — OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company. OpenAI's mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. We are an unofficial community. OpenAI makes ChatGPT, GPT-…
https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/

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web search NEUTRAL — Apr 19, 2023 · OpenAI refuses to take my money. Three different cards declined. I was previously a ChatGPT pro subscriber for help reading articles in my discipline I don't understand, but my credit c…
https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/12saych/openai_refu…

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“In a recent memo to investors, OpenAI boasted that it has clinched more computing power than Anthropic – and seemingly jabbed at the rival firm’s CEO Dario Amodei, who recently said some companies had pulled “the risk dial too far” on data-center spending, the report said.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence was gathered for this claim, and the evidence count confirms no sources were found.

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“But in recent months, after ChatGPT’s growth slowed at the end of the last year, board directors have started questioning Altman’s efforts to secure more computing power, sources told the Journal.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence was gathered for this claim, and the evidence count confirms no sources were found.

schedule

“Friar has also expressed reservations about OpenAI’s plans to go public by the end of the year, arguing to execs and board directors that the company isn’t ready to meet the reporting standards required of a public company, the report said.”

PENDING

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“Altman – who is currently entangled in a legal battle with Elon Musk – has favored a more aggressive timeline for an IPO, according to the report.”

PENDING

info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.

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OpenAI misses revenue, new user goals in painful stumble ahead of blockbuster IPO: report

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