OpenAI CFO warns of cash strain as spending outpaces revenue

OpenAI has fallen short of its goals for new users and revenue in recent months, sparking concern among company leaders over whether it can support its extensive data-center spending, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Monday. CFO Sarah Friar has reportedly expressed concerns to other leaders that the ChatGPT creator might not be able to pay for future computing contracts if revenue does not grow fast enough. The company also missed multiple monthly revenue targets earlier this year after losing ground to competitor Anthropic in coding and enterprise markets. ChatGPT's growth slowed toward the end of last year, with OpenAI falling short of an internal target to reach 1 billion weekly active users for the artificial intelligence chatbot by year-end, the report said. The company has additionally grappled with subscriber defections. Friar has reportedly pushed for more discipline over spending, creating disagreement with CEO Sam Altman. Altman and Friar jointly called the Journal report "ridiculous" in an emailed statement to Reuters, saying they are "totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day." The company is ramping up toward an IPO later this year. Meanwhile, corporate spending on AI data centers by the four major cloud service providers could reach $660 billion this year, representing growth of 66 percent in capital expenditures over 2025, according to research by J.P. Morgan. This comes as the AI sector continues to see massive infrastructure investment despite broader economic uncertainty. In a related development, Nvidia appointed Scott Gawel, Intel's former Chief Accounting Officer, as its VP and Chief Accounting Officer with a base salary of $800,000 and equity grants valued at $12.9 million.