OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on Thursday that the company expects to generate over $20 billion in annualized revenue in 2025, a sharp increase from the $13 billion projection provided in September 2024. This growth is driven by the rapid commercial success of ChatGPT, which launched in late 2022 and now reports 800 million weekly active users, with expectations to reach 1 billion total users by the end of 2025.
The company has set an ambitious target to achieve hundreds of billions in revenue by 2030, despite currently operating at a loss with a valuation of $500 billion. To support this expansion, OpenAI has signed more than $1.4 trillion in infrastructure agreements over the next eight years to build data centers for AI development.
CFO Sarah Friar initially drew criticism after suggesting a potential federal backstop for funding, but she later clarified in a LinkedIn post that OpenAI is not seeking government financial backing. White House AI advisor David Sacks reinforced this, ruling out any federal bailouts for AI companies and stating that the market would handle failures.
Altman emphasized that governments should not bail out companies and that taxpayers should not bear the cost of poor business decisions. He expressed confidence in OpenAI's strategy but acknowledged the risks, noting that the company must start building infrastructure now due to long timelines.
