POPA ReconOpenAI's revenue run rate: is the FT's "approaching $50bn, not $70bn" report true, and is cloud-partner accounting the cause?
Conclusion
The FT report is widely relayed but not verified at the source. The FT article itself could not be read, and OpenAI declined to comment. The accounting explanation is plausible and consistent with the commentary, but it rests on secondhand accounts. Nothing here confirms the exact size of the gap.
What is reported
Coin Bureau (8 Oct, 16:56 UTC) says that, per the FT, OpenAI told investors its annualised revenue was approaching $50bn at the end of September, against the $70bn previously reported. It also says the gap reportedly stems from how OpenAI and Anthropic count cloud-partner revenue, and that OpenAI declined to comment. Typhoonsama gives the same account. MelvinInvests adds that investors tried to adjust OpenAI's numbers to match Anthropic's accounting. It says that added roughly $20bn of estimated partner revenue and produced the $70bn headline. All of these are reposts of the FT. None of them is the FT text.
Where the $70bn came from
Axios, as relayed by shipfrontierai (3 Oct), reported the run rate "nearing $70 billion", up more than 70% since the start of Q3. Axios did this citing sources familiar with the numbers. A Telegram news item from 29 Sep carried the same "Nears $70 Billion" headline next to OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Sol launch. ARK Invest repeated that OpenAI went from about $20bn at the end of last year to $70bn. So $70bn was a media-reported figure from sources. The posts I read do not show OpenAI publishing it. RealNickMugalli makes the same point.
The accounting explanation
LaurelonCapital, who says the view was drafted with help from Grok, describes the difference as known for months. In that account, OpenAI books Azure-channel revenue net of Microsoft's cut. Anthropic books sales through AWS Bedrock and Google Cloud gross. Both treatments are said to be permissible under US GAAP but not directly comparable. This is unverified commentary, not a filing or an OpenAI statement. Typhoonsama says the adjusted figures had already produced the $40bn reported for August.
Reading it
If these accounts are right, the $50bn is OpenAI's own basis. The $70bn came from putting OpenAI on a gross, Anthropic-style basis. That would be a definitional gap, not a $20bn collapse in sales. Commentators also note that growth from about $20bn at the end of 2025 is still steep on either figure.
Not established
The FT's exact wording and sourcing, the size of the adjustment, and any OpenAI confirmation are not established by the sources I found.