OpenAI is accelerating its pace: revenue reached $40 billion amid personnel reshuffles.
OpenAI is demonstrating impressive momentum: the company's annual revenue run rate has reached $40 billion. This figure has doubled since the end of 2025, a powerful signal for the market ahead of a potential initial public offering (IPO). However, this rapid financial growth is accompanied by significant turbulence in leadership.
What's Behind the Record Growth
Three areas have been the key drivers of this surge. First, the number of ChatGPT subscribers continues to grow. Second, sales of developer tools, particularly Codex, are increasing rapidly. Third, a young but fast-growing advertising business is making a notable contribution.
Internal data confirms that July was a record month, generating more revenue than the entire second quarter. Growth compared to June exceeded 20%. Company President Greg Brockman personally informed employees of these results.
The new pricing policy also played a role. The reduction in service costs in July, made possible by business optimization, not only failed to cause a drop in revenue but also attracted new corporate clients. AI agents provided additional momentum: ChatGPT Work for office teams and Codex for programmers are encouraging users to upgrade to more expensive plans.
Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar previously forecast revenue of more than $20 billion by the end of 2025. Current pace has doubled those expectations. Management now aims to generate half of its revenue from corporate clients by the end of this year.
Executive Shuffle as a Risk Factor
Amid these successes, the company is being left by Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dressel, who served for only about eight months. She joined from Slack in December of last year. Her departure follows that of other top executives, including Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap. Global sales will now be led by Dali Rajic, who previously worked at cybersecurity company Wiz.
In recent months, OpenAI has also lost its head of ethics, head of the safety division, and chief strategy officer. Brockman has taken on some management functions in an attempt to stabilize the situation.
Preparation for the IPO is in full swing: the company has filed for a confidential listing and recently bought back $7 billion worth of employee shares at its own expense. However, a competitor looms on the horizon — Anthropic, which plans to go public as early as October with a valuation of more than $2 trillion.
My take: Revenue growth to $40 billion is undoubtedly a strong indicator, but it should not overshadow the systemic problem of retaining key talent. For investors, this is a dual signal: on one hand, the business model is scaling; on the other, internal instability could become a serious drag. The outcome of the battle for leadership with Anthropic will largely depend on whether OpenAI can maintain managerial integrity until the listing.