OpenAI's revenue, growth estimates fall short as company races toward IPO: Report

Cnbc · Apr 28, 2026 · 283 words · By Samantha Subin

Corporate Financial Health AI Industry Spending/Competition

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OpenAI has fallen short of its own revenue and user growth estimates, raising questions about whether the AI company can meet its massive data center spending plans, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Claims checked 8

Techniques found 1

Topics 2

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage

Left0%

Center100%

Right0%

1 source compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Why it matters

Finance Chief Sarah Friar has expressed concerns over the company's ability to fund future compute agreements if the revenue slowdown continues, the outlet reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Common ground

According to the report, Friar is working with other executives to clamp down on costs as the board of directors more closely scrutinizes OpenAI's computing deals.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

Follow-up questions

What new context would change how readers understand this Corporate Financial Health story?
What evidence would most clearly confirm or weaken the claim that This week, OpenAI announced major changes to its partnership with Microsoft, a longtime backer that has invested more than $13 billion in the company since 2019?
What happens next if the deal stalls, and who has the power to restart talks?

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/28/openais-revenue-growth-estimates-fall-short-repo…

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 1 propaganda technique in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning

Loaded Language 40% confidence

Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.

Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.

Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 8 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

info Single Source 5

check_circle Corroborated 3

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Claim 1: “This week, OpenAI announced major changes to its partnership with Microsoft, a longtime backer that has invested more than $13 billion in the company since 2019.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The evidence provided for this claim is generic (OpenAI's mission, products) and does not contain any specific report detailing that OpenAI announced major changes to its partnership with Microsoft *this week*, nor does it confirm the $13 billion investment figure from 2019.

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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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info

Claim 2: “Oracle inked a $300 billion five-year computing deal with OpenAI, and Nvidia has pledged billions to the startup.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The evidence provided for this claim is limited to general information about Oracle and OpenAI, but it does not contain the specific details of a '$300 billion five-year computing deal' signed by Oracle with OpenAI, nor confirmation of a pledge of billions from Nvidia. The claim appears to be based on external context not fully supported by the provided snippets.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — An AI boom is a period of rapid growth in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The most recent boom started gradually in the late 2010s before seeing increased acceleration and media coverage in…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_boom

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The AI bubble is a theorised stock market bubble growing amidst the AI boom, a period of rapid increase in investment in artificial intelligence (AI) that is affecting the broader economy. Speculation…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_bubble

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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

info

Claim 3: “According to the report, Friar is working with other executives to clamp down on costs as the board of directors more closely scrutinizes OpenAI's computing deals.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The evidence mentions cost-cutting (e.g., cutting Sora) and the board scrutinizing plans, but it does not contain a direct report stating that Sarah Friar is working with executives to clamp down on costs *because* the board of directors is closely scrutinizing computing deals. The evidence is suggestive but lacks direct corroboration for the specific mechanism described.

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web search NEUTRAL — OpenAI’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, is leveraging the company’s own ChatGPT chatbot for both personal and professional tasks, from generating a tilapia recipe for dinner to streamlining her…
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/openai-chatgpt-slack-anth…

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web search NEUTRAL — OpenAI missed its goals for new users and revenue, and it's unclear whether the AI startup will be able to fund data center plans.
https://www.pymnts.com/artificial-intelligence-2/2026/openai…

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web search NEUTRAL — To streamline costs, OpenAi recently cut non-core projects such as its video-generation app Sora. OpenAI also recently released GPT-5.5, a powerful model that topped a number of industry benchmarks.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/openai-misses-revenue-user…

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Claim 4: “OpenAI recently launched a major strategic partnership with Amazon and expanded an existing $38 billion spending agreement by $100 billion.”

CORROBORATED

Two separate web search results corroborate that Amazon and OpenAI formed a major strategic partnership, and that the existing $38 billion agreement was expanded by an additional $100 billion.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Anthropic PBC is an American artificial intelligence (AI) company headquartered in San Francisco. It has developed a range of large language models (LLMs) named Claude and focuses on AI safety. Anthro…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Codex is an AI coding agent developed by OpenAI for software engineering tasks such as writing code and fixing bugs, released in April 2025 as Codex CLI. Codex is available through ChatGPT's web app, …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI_Codex_(AI_agent)

+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 5: “As part of the changes, OpenAI will cap revenue share payments, and Microsoft will no longer have an exclusive license to its intellectual property.”

CORROBORATED

Two independent web search results confirm that the partnership changes include Microsoft losing exclusivity (allowing OpenAI to use other cloud providers) and that revenue share payments are being altered or capped.

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web search NEUTRAL — Microsoft and OpenAI’s famed AGI agreement is dead. The two companies have re-negotiated their partnership into one that lets OpenAI bring its products to any cloud provider www.theverge.com/ai-artifi…
https://news.google.com/stories/CAAqNggKIjBDQklTSGpvSmMzUnZj…

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web search NEUTRAL — But Microsoft’s license “will now be non-exclusive,” the announcement reads, letting OpenAI make its models available through other major cloud providers going forward.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/04/no-longer-exclusive-micro…

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web search NEUTRAL — Microsoft will remain OpenAI’s primary cloud partner with the right ship new OpenAI products first, but OpenAI will be able to serve all of its products to customers across any cloud provider. Microso…
https://www.capitalbrief.com/briefing/openai-ends-exclusive-…

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Claim 6: “Shares of chipmakers and tech companies, such as Oracle, slumped on the report.”

SINGLE SOURCE

One web search result mentions that chipmakers like NVIDIA and AMD received gains following Oracle's stock surge, and another mentions Broadcom falling. However, none of the provided evidence sources explicitly state that *shares of chipmakers and tech companies, such as Oracle, slumped* following the report; rather, the evidence shows mixed or positive reactions for some stocks.

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web search NEUTRAL — Oracle Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in Santa Clara, California in 1977 by Bob Miner, Ed Oates, and current chairman of the boa…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation

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web search NEUTRAL — Price targets for Oracle stock were significantly raised across the board. The surge had a ripple effect, boosting broader tech sentiment and leading to gains in the stocks of chipmakers like NVIDIA a…
https://markets.financialcontent.com/stocks/article/marketmi…

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web search NEUTRAL — On Friday, Reuters reported Broadcom shares fell more than 11% after the company warned that growing sales of lower-margin custom AI processors were squeezing profitability, feeding fears that the AI …
https://ts2.tech/en/ai-stocks-slide-after-broadcom-oracle-sp…

info

Claim 7: “OpenAI has fallen short of its own revenue and user growth estimates, raising questions about whether the AI company can meet its massive data center spending plans, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The provided evidence snippets do not contain the specific report from The Wall Street Journal stating that OpenAI missed revenue/user growth estimates and questioned its data center spending plans. The evidence provided for this claim is generic or unrelated to the specific financial reporting mentioned in the claim.

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+ 3 more evidence sources

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Claim 8: “Finance Chief Sarah Friar has expressed concerns over the company's ability to fund future compute agreements if the revenue slowdown continues, the outlet reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.”

CORROBORATED

Two separate web search results cite sources familiar with the matter stating that CFO Sarah Friar expressed concern about the company's ability to pay for future computing contracts due to revenue slowdowns.

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web search NEUTRAL — Sarah Jane Friar OBE is an Irish-American business executive, who has been the chief financial officer of OpenAI since June 2024. She was the chief executive officer of American technology company Nex…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Friar

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web search NEUTRAL — One of them is the company's finance chief: CFO Sarah Friar told other company leaders that she is worried the company might not be able to pay for future computing contracts if revenue doesn’t grow f…
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/openai-misses-revenue-user…

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web search NEUTRAL — Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has told other leaders that she is concerned OpenAI might not be able to pay for future computing contracts if revenue doesn’t grow quickly enough, sources familiar…
https://www.pymnts.com/artificial-intelligence-2/2026/openai…

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.