OpenAI’s revenue math is giving Wall Street a headache

OpenAI’s annualized revenue run rate stood at approximately $50 billion at the end of September, according to the Financial Times. That would be an eye-popping number for almost any company on Earth. The trouble is that investors had been passing around a figure closer to $70 billion in late September. When your audience expects a seven and you hand them a five, the reaction is predictable. The gap did not come from customers walking away. It came from two different ways of counting the same money. That distinction matters a lot when a company is reportedly eyeing a public listing at a valuation of around $1.4 trillion. Gross versus net: the accounting fork in the road Picture a travel agent who sells a $1,000 flight and keeps a $100 commission. One way of booking that sale records $1,000 in revenue. The other records only the $100 the agent actually keeps. That, roughly, is the split at the heart of this story. Per the research findings, OpenAI reports revenue on a net basis. Investors, however, had been applying a gross methodology similar to the one used by rival Anthropic, which includes sales made through partners. The FT report landed on October 8, 2026, and it quickly reshap...