OpenAI accelerates revenue to $40 billion, but loses key executives ahead of IPO
OpenAI is demonstrating impressive financial momentum: the company's annual revenue run rate has reached $40 billion. This figure has doubled compared to the end of 2025, signaling rapid business scaling.
Such aggressive growth strengthens the position of those advocating for a public listing, but in parallel, the company is facing serious personnel turbulence: key figures are leaving the top management ranks.
What is driving the financial metrics
The main growth drivers are three areas. The number of ChatGPT subscribers continues to increase, software sales for developers are growing at a faster pace, and the new advertising business is already making a tangible contribution to revenue.
Company President Greg Brockman told employees that revenue in July grew by more than 20% compared to June. This is also confirmed by internal reporting: July brought in more revenue than the entire second quarter. This was partly driven by a new pricing policy — lowering service costs for clients. More affordable products attracted new corporate customers, and the expected downturn did not materialize.
Additional momentum came from AI agents: Codex for programmers and ChatGPT Work for office teams. Both products are pushing clients toward more expensive pricing plans, increasing the average transaction value.
Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar previously forecast that revenue would exceed $20 billion by the end of 2025. Now management is setting a more ambitious goal: to derive half of its revenue from corporate clients by the end of the current year.
Personnel changes and IPO preparation
In the coming weeks, Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser, who joined from Slack in December 2025 and worked for about eight months, is leaving the company. Her responsibilities will be transferred to Dali Rajic, who previously headed the cybersecurity company Wiz.
Dresser is leaving following Brad Lightcap, to whom part of her tasks were planned to be transferred. Fiji Simo also left earlier due to health reasons. Over the past few months, the company has also lost its head of ethics, the head of the security division, and a former chief strategy officer. Brockman has taken on part of the management functions to stabilize the situation.
Preparation for the stock exchange is in full swing: OpenAI has filed for an initial public offering in confidential mode and recently bought back $7 billion worth of shares from employees using its own funds.
Competitor Anthropic plans to go public as early as October with a valuation of more than $2 trillion. OpenAI's share price will directly depend on whether revenue growth outweighs personnel losses.
My view: Revenue growth to $40 billion is a powerful signal to the market, but the series of top executive departures ahead of the IPO creates a risk of management chaos. Investors should closely watch how the company handles this challenge, as management stability is one of the key valuation factors in a listing.