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

--:--

Elon

Good evening Norris, I'm Elon, and this is Goose Pod for you. Today is Thursday, November 13th. We're diving into Sam Altman's audacious claims about OpenAI's revenue. He says it's far beyond the rumored thirteen billion dollars.

Morgan Freedman

And I'm Morgan Freedman. We are here to explore what it means when a company's ambition seems to outpace reality itself, hinting at a hundred-billion-dollar future as soon as 2027. It's a bold new chapter in the story of technology.

Elon

Exactly. On a recent podcast, Altman didn't just correct the record, he shattered it. When asked about making massive financial commitments with "only" thirteen billion in revenue, he said they're doing "well more" than that. It's the kind of forward-betting I love to see.

Morgan Freedman

It's a powerful statement. He seems to be telling the world that while they see the tip of the iceberg, he's steering the entire mass beneath. He even challenged the timeline for reaching one hundred billion, suggesting 2027 instead of 2029.

Elon

He basically told the host, "How about '27?" That's not just confidence, that's a declaration of war on mediocrity. He's building an empire, and empires require massive infrastructure deals with giants like Nvidia and Oracle. The scale of spending is simply unprecedented.

Morgan Freedman

And with that spending comes immense scrutiny. Yet, Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, says OpenAI has exceeded every business plan he's ever seen. It appears that even among giants, OpenAI's execution is seen as something of a marvel. The numbers are simply staggering.

Elon

To understand this, you have to look at their trajectory. This didn't happen overnight. They started as a non-profit in 2015 with a billion-dollar pledge, but for years, they collected only a fraction of that. They were burning cash on cloud computing just to stay alive.

Morgan Freedman

It's a classic tale of evolution. The transition to a "capped" for-profit company in 2019 was the turning point. It allowed them to attract the kind of capital needed for their ambitions, starting with Microsoft's first billion-dollar investment that same year. A necessary change, perhaps.

Elon

Absolutely necessary. You can't build the future on donations. They've now raised nearly sixty billion dollars across eleven funding rounds. We're talking a forty-billion-dollar round just this year to fund the Stargate supercomputer initiative. You need that firepower to pioneer new frontiers.

Morgan Freedman

And the valuation has followed that path, climbing to a reported one trillion dollars by late 2025. It illustrates a belief from investors that goes beyond simple revenue. They are buying into a vision of artificial general intelligence, a complete paradigm shift for humanity.

Elon

It's not just belief; it's a calculated bet on the biggest technological revolution in history. From a few million in expenses to projecting two hundred billion in revenue by 2030, the scale is astronomical. This isn't just a company; it's a force of nature.

Elon

Of course, the critics are lining up. They point to the "bad economics," saying costs grow just as fast as revenue. They see projected losses of five billion this year, and forty-four billion by 2028, and they panic. They don't understand the investment cycle of deep tech.

Morgan Freedman

There is a certain logic to their caution. Unlike traditional software, every query to an AI model costs money. The massive infrastructure required, with partners like Microsoft spending over one hundred billion, carries immense financial weight. It's a balancing act on a very thin wire.

Elon

But that's where they're wrong! They see a wire; I see a launch cable. Altman himself said he'd love to see short-sellers get burned. The technology is also commoditizing, yes, but that only expands the market. First-mover advantage in AGI is everything, you can't play it safe.

Morgan Freedman

And yet, you have competitors like Meta releasing powerful open-source models for free. They can absorb the cost through their existing empires. It creates a difficult environment for a company that must sell access to its models to survive. The conflict is between two fundamentally different philosophies.

Elon

It's not a conflict, it's an ecosystem. People call it an "Infinite Money Glitch," this circular flow of capital where Nvidia invests in OpenAI, which then buys Nvidia's chips. It's not a glitch; it's strategic vertical integration on an industry-wide scale. It's brilliant.

Morgan Freedman

Some observers find it concerning. They see parallels to the dot-com era, where valuations were propped up by companies investing in each other. If one piece falters, the entire structure could be at risk. It blurs the line between genuine revenue and recycled capital.

Elon

That’s just noise. OpenAI is building an empire that controls the whole stack—chips, cloud, models, even hardware. This isn't just about software; it's about redefining the entire technological landscape. If they succeed, they rewrite all the rules. The impact is total transformation.

Elon

And the future is an IPO. They're aiming for 2027, maybe even late 2026. They'll need to raise tens of billions, maybe more. The scale of capital required to build out the data centers for AGI is over a trillion dollars a year. A public offering is the only logical path forward.

Morgan Freedman

A one-trillion-dollar valuation would place them among the largest companies in the world from day one. It sets an extraordinary precedent and carries with it the weight of immense expectation. The future they envision requires a constant, massive infusion of capital to become reality.

Elon

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

Morgan Freedman

Indeed. It's a high-stakes game of ambition and capital, where the future is being built one astronomical investment at a time. Until next time.

Sam Altman reveals OpenAI's revenue significantly exceeds $13 billion, projecting $100 billion by 2027. The discussion highlights OpenAI's massive investments in infrastructure, strategic partnerships, and a bold vision for AGI. Despite criticisms of high costs and potential economic risks, the episode emphasizes OpenAI's ambitious trajectory and potential for total technological transformation.

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.