Everybody Is Thinking It
Lemonade Stand podcast host and Twitch streamer
Atrioc
eloquently sums up the sentiment many share about OpenAI.
This company is going to blow up the whole fucking economy, I swear to God. OpenAI is fucking
deranged dude. Every day they announce a new fucking gazillion dollar God damn deal they cannot
afford. And they are just going to try to get the government to bail them out. And it’s so fucking
obvious now.
The Spicy Interview
Sam Altman recently appeared on the Bg2 Podcast alongside Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, hosted
by Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital. Gerstner has a long history of being
very pro-OpenAI and is a private investor in the company.
During the interview, Gerstner asks Sam a basic and reasonable question that everyone
should be asking.
How can a company with $13 billion in revenue make $1.4 trillion in spending commitments?
Sam then goes on an unhinged rant, claiming OpenAI makes “way more revenue than that” and
defensively telling Gerstner what he can do next.
If you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer. Enough.
Sam continues…
There are not many times that I want to be a public company, but one of the rare times it’s
appealing is when people are writing these ‘OpenAI is about to go out of business or whatever’
and I would love to tell them to just short the stock.
But the question is hardly unwarranted. OpenAI is making low-tens of billions of dollars
in revenue (not profit), yet it has commitments to pay hundreds of billions in
the next few years for infrastructure buildout.
In the past few months alone, OpenAI has racked up commitments of nearly $1.5 trillion, including:
- $250 billion with Microsoft – using Azure cloud platform capacity
- $500 billion with Oracle – for cloud computing capacity
- $38 billion with Amazon – for use of AWS data center capacity
- $22.4 billion with CoreWeave – for GPU cloud capacity
- $100 billion – in general data center buildout, committed to using Nvidia GPUs
- “tens of billions” with AMD – to deploy AMD Instinct GPUs
- “undisclosed” with Broadcom – to design and produce in-house AI accelerators
OpenAI literally does not have the money to pay for these commitments. Its estimated
top-line annual revenue of $13 billion doesn’t even cover its costs, let alone provide for
profit. In fact, OpenAI is currently incinerating cash, reporting a net loss of
$11.5 billion in the past quarter ending September 30, 2025. That is insane.
That is not a company prepared to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure buildout.
Floating the Government Bailout
OpenAI CFO Sara Friar (former CEO of Nextdoor), in an interview at The Wall Street Journal’s
Tech Live Event, made a curious, chopped statement:
… and so this is where we’re looking for an ecosystem of banks, private equity, maybe even
governmental … the way governments come to bear … the backstop to guarantee that allows
the financing to happen …
The interviewer then specifically asks Friar if she was referring to a “federal backstop for
chip investment,” to which she confirms, “Exactly.”
These comments quickly caused public backlash, with critics arguing that a private company
seeking a taxpayer-backed safety net for its enormous debts amounts to a bailout for its
absurd spending.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman soon released statements to walk back the idea, claiming, “We believe
that governments should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out
companies that make bad business decisions or otherwise lose in the market.”
Floating the CHIPS Act Tax Benefit
Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, formally sent a letter to the White
House Office of Science and Technology Policy proposing an expansion of the Advanced
Manufacturing Investment Credit (AMIC) from semiconductor fabrication facilities (chip fabs)
to include a few new categories:
- AI data centers – the physical facilities required to house and run the AI models
- AI server production – the individual high-powered servers that contain AI chips
- Electrical grid components – critical infrastructure backing the American electrical grid
Obviously, OpenAI would benefit significantly from the 35% discount this tax credit would
offer on the massive infrastructure buildouts the company is trying to finance.
To IPO or Not to IPO
In late October 2025, several major news outlets
published reports
suggesting that OpenAI was “laying the groundwork” for an initial public offering (IPO).
The reports suggested the IPO could value OpenAI at $1 trillion, raising at least $60
billion in new investor capital. The earliest possible timeline for an offering would be in the
second half of 2026 or sometime in 2027.
Sam Altman was quoted in a staff livestream saying an IPO was “the most likely path
for us, given the capital needs that we’ll have.”
However, CFO Sara Friar later made an opposing official statement.
We are not getting ready for an IPO. IPO is not on the cards right now.
Friar
emphasized
that the company’s current focus is on scaling the business and the intense
R&D required to maintain its technological lead, not on the short-term financial cycles and
quarterly demands of a public company. She stated they are prioritizing growth and expansion
over short-term profitability or getting “wrapped around an IPO axle”.
Too Big To Fail, AI Edition
Even The Wall Street Journal is starting to raise concerns about the situation
OpenAI finds itself in. They recently published an article,
Is OpenAI Becoming Too Big To Fail?,
in which they argue OpenAI is indeed positioning itself as a company with so much
debt that its failure would cause serious economic problems.
And yeah, that’s where we find ourselves. The infrastructure spending commitments are responsible
for so much of the recent increase in market cap values that pulling the plug
would have devastating effects on anyone invested in big tech. Which is… pretty much everyone. The
S&P 500 is nearly 40% represented by big tech companies like Nvidia, Oracle, Amazon,
and Broadcom, all of which have many-billion-dollar commitments from OpenAI.
Boom.
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