CaliToday (02/11/2025): OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has delivered an emphatic bullish forecast for the company's financial future, asserting that its current revenue significantly exceeds widely reported figures and teasing an audacious target of $100 billion by as early as 2027. His remarks, made on a recent podcast, underscore OpenAI's aggressive expansion strategy and Altman's defiance towards skeptics of the AI giant's ambitious plans.
During an episode of the Bg2 Pod, released Friday and hosted by Altimeter Capital founder Brad Gerstner, the conversation turned to the staggering financial commitments OpenAI is making – reportedly totaling $1.4 trillion in AI infrastructure deals – in stark contrast to its previously reported annual revenue of $13 billion.
"We're doing well more revenue than that," Altman stated unequivocally, dismissing the $13 billion figure as an understatement.
OpenAI has recently made headlines for securing massive AI infrastructure agreements with industry titans such as Nvidia, Broadcom, and Oracle. This move positions OpenAI alongside other "AI hyperscalers" like Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and its primary investor Microsoft, all of whom are collectively pouring hundreds of billions of dollars annually into capital expenditures to build out their AI capabilities.
Despite generating billions in revenue and continuing to raise tens of billions from investors, Altman has consistently cautioned that the company expects to sustain losses in the near term due to the immense costs associated with developing cutting-edge AI. Microsoft's latest quarterly results further illuminated this, including a $4 billion charge that implicitly suggested OpenAI incurred a $12 billion loss in the previous quarter alone. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on these specific figures.
However, Altman swiftly pivoted on the Bg2 Pod, launching a forceful pushback against those who doubt his company's trajectory. "We do plan for revenue to grow steeply. Revenue is growing steeply," he affirmed. "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's combative stance extended to expressing a desire to see short-sellers – those betting against the company's stock – face substantial losses should OpenAI eventually go public. "I would love to tell them they could just short the stock, and I would love to see them get burned on that," he remarked, hinting at the potential for a public listing in the future.
Nonetheless, Altman acknowledged the inherent risks in OpenAI's pursuit, noting that failure to secure sufficient computing capacity could cause revenue to fall short of even optimistic forecasts.
Providing a crucial vote of confidence, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who also appeared on the podcast, stated that OpenAI has consistently outstripped all the business plans he has reviewed. "Everyone talks about all the success and the usage and what have you," Nadella said. "But even I'd say all up, the business execution has been just pretty unbelievable."
Later in the discussion, Altman's projections grew even more audacious. While discussing the potential for OpenAI to enter the public market, Gerstner floated revenue estimates topping $100 billion a year in 2028 or 2029.
"How about '27?" Altman interjected, signaling an accelerated timeline for achieving that monumental financial milestone. This bold prediction, if realized, would place OpenAI among the world's most valuable and revenue-generating technology companies in an astonishingly short timeframe.