Chris Camillo — OpenAI's $70B vs $50B is gross vs net, not lost demand

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Chris Camillo — OpenAI's $70B vs $50B is gross vs net, not lost demand

The FT reported that OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was near $50B at end-September. The widely cited ~$70B came from investors adding sales routed through cloud partners, to match how Anthropic books revenue. Camillo's gross-vs-net argument is the case to test against the October 8 AI-hardware selloff: the headline number changed, but the customer spending that buys compute may not have.

Open on X Chris Camillo (@ChrisCamillo)
Chris Camillo✓ @ChrisCamillo
Oct 8

Expedia did $120B in bookings last year. Reported just $15B in revenue. Most of the money went to its hotel and airline partners. OpenAI’s $70B vs $50B drama? Investors calculated the higher figure by including AI sales through cloud partners. That’s real customer spending,

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The FT reported that OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was near $50B at end-September. The widely cited ~$70B came from investors adding sales routed through cloud partners, to match how Anthropic books revenue. Camillo's gross-vs-net argument is the case to test against the October 8 AI-hardware selloff: the headline number changed, but the customer spending that buys compute may not have.

10 events
DateTypeEvent
Oct 8 pickBloomberg — Firmus shelves its IPO, a warning for data-center listings Oct 8 tweetZephyr on Shanu Mathew's math — lab revenue per gigawatt, and a $600B 2027 case Oct 9 tweetSemiAnalysis — rising H100 rents break the depreciation curve lenders underwrite, with $7T of debt coming Oct 9 ArticleAI Money Bought Running Power Plants and Sold the Build-Out Oct 6 pickBain & Company — sustaining today's AI capex would take an AI market near $6 trillion a year Oct 13 tweetM. V. Cunha — Nebius reportedly signs an LOI for a big share of a planned 600 MW AI campus in Rotterdam Oct 13 tweetSerenity — Asian coverage of Hock Tan's DBS remarks has him defending OpenAI, not calling AI a casino Oct 13 tweetSatya Nadella — Maia becomes Microsoft's primary inference system at multi-gigawatt scale starting next calendar year Oct 2 tweetSemiAnalysis — Google's GPU cloud climbs to Gold in ClusterMAX, but CoreWeave and Nebius are still the Platinum names it holds up as the bar Oct 15 tweetdylan (@demian_ai) — ASML's long-term contract liabilities jumped almost €6B in a quarter: demand with money attached

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