A Wall Street Journal report on Monday evening revealed that OpenAI missed both its user-growth and revenue targets, causing significant market disruption. Although OpenAI's shares are not publicly traded, the impact was felt strongly by its business partners. Oracle dropped more than 5%, CoreWeave fell 5.4%, Nvidia, Broadcom, and AMD declined by 3% to 4%, and SoftBank cratered around 10% in Tokyo. Oracle, as the anchor of OpenAI's $300 billion five-year compute deal, has been particularly affected.
The report detailed that CFO Sarah Friar has expressed concerns about paying for future computing contracts at current revenue trajectories. OpenAI missed an internal target of one billion weekly active ChatGPT users by year-end 2025, fell short of monthly revenue numbers multiple times in 2026, and is losing subscribers to competitors like Anthropic in coding and Google's Gemini in consumer use. Sam Altman and Sarah Friar called the framing "ridiculous" in a joint statement to CNBC, insisting the team is "totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can." However, the market disagreed.
In contrast, Anthropic has seen remarkable growth. Its annualized revenue run-rate hit $30 billion in April, surpassing OpenAI's reported $24–25 billion. Amazon expanded its commitment by up to $25 billion, and Google followed with up to $40 billion, both providing significant compute capacity. Anthropic's IPO is targeted for October 2026, with a potential valuation of $800 billion or more.
The shift in fortune is partly attributed to the "Pentagon Problem." In late February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei an ultimatum to drop restrictions on autonomous weapons or be designated a supply-chain risk. Amodei refused, leading to a blacklisting from federal procurement and legal battles. However, consumer response was positive: within a week, Claude overtook ChatGPT in the iOS App Store, and ChatGPT uninstalls jumped 295%. Amodei called OpenAI's deal with the Pentagon "safety theater," while Altman conceded the "optics don't look good."
Anthropic now faces operational challenges in scaling, including managing "shrinkflation" with its Opus 4.7 model. OpenAI continues to accelerate product releases, such as GPT-5.5 and ChatGPT Images 2.0, but without the user-acquisition spikes seen previously. The broader AI industry is grappling with questions about demand sustainability, circular financing, and the potential for a bubble.
For crypto investors, the spillover effect is significant. The same hyperscalers supporting AI labs are involved in Bitcoin's energy stack and other crypto-related infrastructure. Bitcoin opened at $77,368 amid the turbulence, and the AI-trade beta has rarely felt this unstable.
