During a November podcast appearance alongside OpenAI investor Grad Gerstner, CEO Sam Altman lost his cool.
After Gerstner challenged him on how a company “with $13 billion in revenues” can “make $1.4 trillion of spend commitments” through 2030, Altman got catty.
“If you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer,” Altman snapped. “Enough.”
At the time, despite certain pangs of panic over a growing AI bubble, the hype was at an all-time high. OpenAI was already burning through oodles of cash, committing to spend hundreds of billions a year on data center buildouts.
But the tone has noticeably shifted since then, with investors growing uneasy about big tech companies trying to one-up each other with astronomical planned capital expenditures, further straining a stock market that’s become massively overindexed on AI.
Meanwhile, OpenAI has been watching as major competitors in the space have made leaps and bounds to catch up with its early lead. Some, like Google, have deeply established revenue sources bankrolling at least a portion of their AI spending commitments.
Now, Altman has seemingly noticed the company may be in way over its head. As CNBC reports, the company is now telling investors it’s targeting around $600 billion in total compute spend by 2030, which is well under half of its original $1.4 trillion commitment.
To put that into perspective, the company made just $13.1 billion in revenue for all of 2025 — while also burning through $8 billion, per CNBC‘s sources.
It’s a massive downshift, highlighting the company’s apparent attempt to calm investors, who’ve grown uneasy over massive spending plans. Tech companies including Amazon and Microsoft have seen their shares plummet earlier this year after announcing they remained devoted to their vast commitments.
Altman had already declared “code red” towards the end of last year, directing his workers to double down on ChatGPT at the cost of delaying other projects to keep up with an ever-stronger competition.
The company has also announced that it will soon be stuffing its blockbuster chatbot with ads, news that was met with derision from competitors.
The ongoing division seems to have strained relationships among AI executives. During an appearance alongside a dozen other industry and political leaders at the recent AI Summit in New Delhi, India, Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to hold hands after being instructed by prime minister Narendra Modi — in what one Redditor described as a “cringe masterpiece.”
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