Key insights
- OpenAI's reported annualized revenue of $50 billion, down from a previous $68 billion estimate, has spooked investors and led to a sell-off in technology stocks, including Nvidia and Oracle. This news comes as OpenAI seeks to justify an $850 billion valuation and CEO Sam Altman confirmed no IPO this year. Separately, an Australian AI firm backed by Nvidia, Firmus, withdrew its IPO due to market volatility.
In this article
Taken from CNBC’s Daily Open, our international markets newsletter — Subscribe today
Hello, this is Leonie Kidd coming to you from London. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.
When you are justifying a valuation of over $850 billion, every metric matters.
OpenAI’s latest annual revenue estimate, confirmed by CNBC, has spooked investors by falling short of previous statements, and the market has taken it out on technology stocks.
Read on for more.
A $20 billion differential from month-to-month is bound to draw negative attention.
OpenAI has told investors that annualized revenue hit $50 billion at the end of September, in a statement confirmed by CNBC. That falls significantly short of the $68 billion figure widely reported last month.
First revealed by the Financial Times, the discrepancy spooked investors, who flocked to sell AI stocks from Nvidia to Oracle to CoreWeave.
It comes at a sensitive time for OpenAI. CEO Sam Altman has confirmed the group will not try to IPO this year, but the company is still looking to justify a valuation that tops $850 billion.
You can watch CNBC’s full interview with Altman and CNBC’s Kate Rooney from the group’s DevDay last week here.
For now, futures are bouncing back from Thursday’s declines, with all three major markets set to open higher on Friday.
Meanwhile, Anthropic is reportedly seeking a $2 trillion valuation in its upcoming listing on the Nasdaq. In a recent note, research firm New Constructs described it as “the most ridiculous IPO of 2026,” adding that it “presents far bigger risks and is positioned to be a far bigger rip-off of U.S. capital markets.”
In other IPO news, a Nvidia-backed AI group in Australia, Firmus, has withdrawn its IPO, citing market volatility. It would have been the second-largest new share sale in Australia’s history.
Oil prices are retreating on Friday, following a steep drop on Thursday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said that America will not attack Iran before the midterm elections. Earlier in the week, his comments about renewed strikes had driven Brent back above $104 a barrel.
An escalation in Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh has prompted flight cancellations and disruption to workplaces and schools. Yemen’s Iran-backed group claimed to fire missiles at the Saudi capital’s airport, and threatened to shut Saudi airspace.
CNBC is continuing to monitor the situation, which now looks set to impact two major events due to take place in Riyadh over the coming weeks.
— Leonie Kidd
‘Real boss of India?’: Elon Musk takes aim at Indian billionaire Ambani as Starlink launch stalls
SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Thursday took a shot at Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, a day after he accused certain “oligarchs” of stalling the launch of his company’s Starlink internet service in the country.
Musk said Starlink was not being allowed to launch in India despite having spent “five years complying with every single law and requirement” of the government.
“Is Ambani the real boss of India?” Musk questioned in a post, having blamed a day earlier “oligarchs” in the country for maintaining a “monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people.”
— Priyanka Salve