Sam Altman says OpenAI’s revenue is ‘well more’ than reports of $13 billion a year and hints it could hit $100 billion by 2027 | Fortune | Goose Pod

Authors: Jason Ma

Publisher:

Fortune

Published: 11/1/2025

Language:English

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Elon

Good morning Norris, I'm Elon, and this is Goose Pod for you. Today is Wednesday, November 12th.

Morgan Freedman

And I'm Morgan Freedman. We are here to discuss a bold proclamation from OpenAI's Sam Altman, who suggests the company's financial reality is far grander than anyone reports.

Elon

Indeed. When an investor questioned how OpenAI could commit to over a trillion in spending with a reported $13 billion in revenue, Altman's response was sharp. He stated their revenue is ‘well more’ than that and that he’d love to see short-sellers get burned.

Morgan Freedman

I've often found that the truth of a number lies in its context. The host of the podcast suggested OpenAI might hit $100 billion in revenue by 2028 or 2029. Altman quickly interjected with a simple, yet profound correction: ‘How about ‘27?’.

Elon

That’s not just confidence; it's a declaration of war on doubt. You don’t make a forward bet of that magnitude without being prepared to reshape the entire landscape. He's signaling that the growth we've seen so far is merely a prelude to the main event.

Morgan Freedman

And the scale is truly staggering. With ChatGPT's weekly active users soaring to 800 million, the demand is undeniable. Yet, this incredible growth is precisely what fuels the immense spending commitments that have so many observers raising their eyebrows.

Morgan Freedman

To understand this moment, we must look back. OpenAI began its journey in 2015 not as a titan of industry, but as a non-profit organization. A billion dollars were pledged, but by 2019, only about $130 million had actually been collected. A humble beginning.

Elon

Which is exactly why the shift was necessary. You cannot build the future on donations alone. In 2019, they transitioned to a 'capped-profit' model. It was the only way to attract the colossal capital required for their ambitions. That’s when Microsoft stepped in.

Morgan Freedman

Microsoft's involvement was a turning point. First, a $1 billion investment in 2019, followed by a monumental $10 billion deal in 2023. This partnership gave OpenAI the resources to scale, running its systems on Microsoft's Azure supercomputing platform.

Elon

And it lit a fire under their valuation. The company was valued at $29 billion in early 2023, but after a series of massive funding rounds, including a $40 billion injection, its valuation has skyrocketed. We're talking about a company now worth half a trillion dollars.

Morgan Freedman

It's a financial trajectory almost without precedent. In total, OpenAI has raised nearly $58 billion across eleven funding rounds, transforming it from a small research lab into one of the most valuable private companies in the history of technology.

Elon

But this is where people get stuck on the old rules. They see projected losses of $5 billion this year and over $40 billion by 2028 and they panic. They don't understand that you have to burn cash to create a new paradigm. It's the cost of invention.

Morgan Freedman

There is a fundamental challenge, however, in the economics of generative AI. Unlike traditional software, the costs grow in lockstep with revenue. Every query costs computing power, and that is a relentless drain, projected to be $6 billion this year alone. It’s a difficult equation to balance.

Elon

Of course it's difficult, it's supposed to be. While critics worry about costs, Meta is releasing open-source models like Llama. This is a competitive threat, certainly, but it also forces the entire industry to accelerate. Complacency is the real enemy here, not competition.

Morgan Freedman

And even OpenAI's closest partners seem to be preparing for multiple outcomes. Microsoft's significant profit-sharing agreement, and its move to acquire other AI teams, suggests a strategy that hedges its bets, acknowledging the immense risk intertwined with the immense opportunity.

Morgan Freedman

This has led to a fascinating, if precarious, situation that some call the 'AI Infinite Money Glitch.' Companies like Nvidia, Oracle, and Microsoft are simultaneously investors, customers, and suppliers to OpenAI. Capital seems to be flowing in a circle between them.

Elon

I see it less as a glitch and more as a self-sustaining ecosystem. It's a strategic alliance. To build something on this scale, the key players must be deeply integrated. One company’s spending is another's revenue, which funds the research that benefits them all. It's symbiotic.

Morgan Freedman

And yet, this reflexive loop has echoes of the past, from the dot-com era to the telecom bubble. It creates systemic risk. If one crucial part of this interconnected structure, like OpenAI, were to falter, the shockwave could be felt across the entire market.

Elon

The only way forward is to go bigger. That’s why an IPO in late 2026 or 2027 is the most likely path. They need to raise upwards of $60 billion to fund the next stage of infrastructure, which could cost over a trillion dollars a year. It's audacious, and it's necessary.

Morgan Freedman

And so, the ambition continues to escalate. The company's projections now aim for $200 billion in revenue by 2030. The planned IPO is not just a financial event; it’s a bid to secure the capital required to build what they see as the future of intelligence itself.

Elon

That's the end of today's discussion. Thank you for listening to Goose Pod.

Morgan Freedman

See you tomorrow.

OpenAI's Sam Altman claims revenue exceeds $13 billion, targeting $100 billion by 2027. Despite high spending and projected losses, this growth fuels massive investment and a strategic ecosystem with partners like Microsoft. An IPO in 2026/27 is planned to fund future infrastructure, aiming for $200 billion revenue by 2030.

Sam Altman says OpenAI’s revenue is ‘well more’ than reports of $13 billion a year and hints it could hit $100 billion by 2027 | Fortune

Read original at Fortune →

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was extremely bullish about the startup’s revenue projections and indicated he would relish the opportunity to take on his haters. In an episode of the Bg2 Pod that was posted on Friday, host Brad Gerstner, who is also the founder of Altimeter Capital, asked how the company could make financial commitments totaling $1.

4 trillion when annual revenue is reportedly $13 billion. “We’re doing well more revenue than that,” Altman replied. OpenAI has announced massive AI infrastructure deals in recent weeks with companies like Nvidia, Broadcom and Oracle. That’s as other so-called AI hyperscalers like Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and top OpenAI investor Microsoft are collectively totaling hundreds of billions of dollars a year in capital expenditures.

While OpenAI continues to raise tens of billions of dollars from investors and generate billions more in revenue, Altman has also warned losses will persist.And Microsoft’s latest quarterly results included a $4 billion charge that imply OpenAI lost $12 billion last quarter. OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

But on the Bg2 Pod, Altman quickly followed up his comment on OpenAI’s revenue with forceful pushback against those who doubt his company. “We do plan for revenue to grow steeply. Revenue is growing steeply,” he said. “We are taking a forward bet that it’s going to continue to grow and that not only will ChatGPT keep growing, but we will be able to become one of the important AI clouds, that our consumer device business will be a significant and important thing, that AI that can automate science [and] will create huge value.

” Altman added that one of the rare instances when being a publicly traded company would be appealing is when there’s an opportunity for short-sellers to lose big. “I would love to tell them they could just short the stock, and I would love to see them get burned on that,” he said.Still, Altman acknowledged OpenAI is taking a risk and could stumble, noting that if it doesn’t obtain enough computing capacity then revenue may fall short of forecasts.

But Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who also appeared on the podcast, said OpenAI has exceeded all the business plans that he has seen. “Everyone talks about all the success and the usage and what have you,” he said. “But even I’d say all up, the business execution has been just pretty unbelievable.” Later in the conversation, Altman hinted at even more explosive revenue growth in the next few years.

Last year, sources told The New York Times that OpenAI predicted revenue would hit $100 billion by 2029.While talking about the potential for OpenAI to go public in the coming years, Bg2 host Gerstner floated revenue estimates topping $100 billion a year in 2028 or 2029. “How about ’27?” Altman interjected.