OpenAI slams WSJ for fake news: Business is firing on all cylinders, no issues with company outlook

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The Wall Street Journal revealed on Monday that OpenAI missed its monthly revenue targets for several consecutive months in 2026 and failed to reach its internal goal of "1 billion WAU by year-end" for ChatGPT. The report cited CFO Sarah Friar’s concerns that without accelerated revenue growth, the company might struggle to meet its future compute commitments totaling $600 billion. OpenAI countered on Tuesday with a three-pronged approach: telling Bloomberg that business is "firing on all cylinders" and calling out the WSJ on X as "clickbait." However, investors were clearly unconvinced, as SoftBank shares plunged about 10% in Tokyo, Oracle fell 7.7%, and CoreWeave dropped 7.4%. (Previous coverage: Friction between Microsoft and OpenAI? WSJ: Rift between the two is widening) (Background: Bloomberg: OpenAI is in talks with regulators to transition into a for-profit company) The day after the WSJ report, shares of OpenAI’s investors plummeted. On Tuesday (4/29), OpenAI issued statements to both CNBC and Bloomberg, and posted on X, to fully deny external doubts regarding its sales growth. The problem is that the market does not wait for PR releases—SoftBank shares plunged about 10% in a single day in Tokyo, Oracle, which signed a 5-year, $300 billion compute contract with OpenAI, fell 7.7%, and infrastructure partner CoreWeave dropped 7.4%. The louder the company shouted, the faster investors ran. The event began with an in-depth investigation by The Wall Street Journal on Monday (4/28). The report cited sources revealing that ChatGPT’s user growth began to slow at the end of 2025, and the internal goal of reaching "1 billion weekly active users (WAU) by year-end" was not met. Entering 2026, the company failed to meet its monthly revenue targets for several consecutive months. The greatest pressure lies with CFO Sarah Friar, who reportedly expressed concerns privately to other executives: if revenue growth cannot accelerate, OpenAI may be unable to fulfill its future compute procurement commitments. The figures cited by the WSJ are staggering—OpenAI has committed to future compute expenditures totaling approximately $600 billion. Roughly estimated, this means the company’s annual revenue must continue to grow at a doubling rate to barely cover the bills. The competitive landscape is equally grim. The WSJ pointed out that Anthropic is rapidly gaining ground on two fronts—coding tools and the enterprise market—becoming one of OpenAI’s most direct competitors in a war of attrition. OpenAI’s response was swift, but it used three different channels and three different tones: - To CNBC: "This is ridiculous. We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day." The tone was the most aggressive, directly denying any rift. - To Bloomberg: Business is "firing on all cylinders," with enterprise customer demand and advertising business continuing to grow, and the "internal atmosphere is very positive." - Statement on X: It highlighted the explosive growth of Codex, noted that the enterprise version is available on all major cloud platforms, mentioned the start of the advertising business, and stated that the compute strategy is moving forward, calling the WSJ report "typical clickbait." The only overlapping message in the three statements was that the company is fine. However, none of the statements directly addressed the specific figures raised by the WSJ—whether the failure to meet monthly targets is true, why the 1B WAU goal was delayed, and whether Friar’s concerns about compute actually occurred. The market is not ignoring the news because it distrusts OpenAI’s PR rhetoric, but because the arithmetic itself speaks. The scale of compute procurement agreements OpenAI has signed over the past year is staggering: a $60 billion investment commitment from SoftBank, a 5-year, $300 billion contract with Oracle, an $11.9 billion infrastructure contract with CoreWeave, plus multiple commitments for the Stargate project, bringing total compute spending close to the $600 billion threshold. Most of these contracts have timelines and are not "we'll see later" promises. The problem is: if it is true that monthly revenue targets have been missed consecutively, the credibility of the "doubling growth assumption" is directly shaken. Shareholders of Oracle, CoreWeave, and SoftBank are not selling based on their trust in OpenAI’s PR releases, but are betting on the continued explosion of future compute demand—once a crack appears in the growth narrative, the valuation logic for these compute partners must be recalculated. OpenAI is currently at a critical juncture in its transition to a for-profit company, with an external valuation exceeding $300 billion. The market generally expects its IPO timeline to land in 2

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