Markets slumped on AI jitters as OpenAI triggered a broader selloff cascade. The ChatGPT parent has reportedly missed its own revenue and user targets, raising fresh doubts about whether the company can keep pace with its massive financial commitments.
According to Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, OpenAI missed an internal goal of one billion weekly active users for ChatGPT by the end of 2025. The company also reportedly fell short of several monthly revenue targets earlier this year after losing some of its market share to Anthropic. Together, those misses have intensified scrutiny over whether growth in generative AI is beginning to slow.
Those concerns appear to have reached the company’s top ranks. Sarah Friar, OpenAI’s chief financial officer, reportedly warned other company leaders that the firm may struggle to cover future computing contracts if revenue growth does not accelerate.
She also expressed caution about OpenAI IPO, planned later this year, warning the company may be unable to meet the reporting standards required of a public company. Reuters reported in October that OpenAI is preparing for an IPO that could value the company at more than $1 trillion, making it one of the largest stock debuts ever.
Even so, the longer-term outlook inside the company appears more optimistic. Friar signaled “really strong demand” from individual investors earlier this month, with plans for OpenAI to reserve a portion of shares for retail traders once it goes public.
OpenAI pushed back forcefully against the report. Their spokesperson Steve Sharpe called the Journal’s report “clickbait” in a statement to Forbes. Sharpe said OpenAI’s business is “firing on all cylinders,” adding that consumer momentum is beginning to show up in revenue and that its enterprise division is “in the best place it has ever been.”
Still, investors often react quickly when expectations run ahead of reality, especially in high-growth sectors. In this case, traders appeared to reassess whether the AI buildout timeline could be bumpier and slower than previously assumed.
That shift in sentiment was immediately visible across markets. Shares of companies tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure moved lower. Oracle, which has a $300 billion, five-year partnership to supply computing power to OpenAI, fell 4%. Chipmakers Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices dropped 4% and 3%, respectively, while Nvidia stock declined about 1.6% as investors questioned how quickly AI demand would translate into durable revenue growth.
The broader market also weakened. The Nasdaq Composite fell about 0.9% Tuesday as technology stocks retreated from recent record territory, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down 25 points.
By overnight trading, however, sentiment appeared steadier. Nasdaq futures rose about 0.5%, while S&P 500 futures added 0.2%. Dow Jones futures also edged modestly higher, signaling a broadly calmer tone across equity markets after the earlier selloff.
Attention now turns to earnings from Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft. Investors are looking for confirmation that heavy AI spending is beginning to generate measurable cash returns, rather than simply funding larger data centers and bigger capital-expenditure headlines.
