Internal reports from the Wall Street Journal and other financial outlets on Tuesday, April 28, 2026, indicate that OpenAI has missed several key internal performance targets, creating a rift among leadership just as the company prepares for a potential year-end Initial Public Offering (IPO).
The news has sent shockwaves through the “OpenAI complex,” causing SoftBank Group shares to tumble 9.9% in Tokyo—its worst single-day decline in six months.
1. The Missing Numbers
Despite raising $122 billion in fresh capital just last month, OpenAI is struggling to maintain the astronomical growth rates expected by its board and investors.
| Metric | Target (End of 2025) | Actual Performance | Status |
| Weekly Active Users | 1 Billion | ~900 Million | Missed |
| Annual Revenue | Internal Goal | Short of Target | Missed |
| Monthly Revenue | Consistent Growth | Consecutive Monthly Misses | Missed |
- User Plateau: ChatGPT failed to hit the psychological milestone of 1 billion weekly users by the end of 2025. Churn among paid subscribers is reportedly becoming a “challenging issue” for management.
- Market Share Erosion: Analysts point to Google’s Gemini and Anthropic as the primary culprits. Gemini has reportedly eaten into OpenAI’s general market share, while Anthropic’s Claude has gained significant ground in the high-margin coding and enterprise sectors.
2. Executive Rifts: The “Compute” War
The revenue miss has sparked a strategic disagreement between CEO Sam Altman and CFO Sarah Friar regarding the company’s aggressive spending.
- The CFO’s Warning: Sarah Friar has reportedly expressed deep concerns to the board that OpenAI may struggle to fulfill its hundreds of billions of dollars in future data center and computing contracts if revenue growth does not accelerate.
- The IPO Delay: Friar is reportedly pushing to delay the IPO beyond 2026, arguing that the company’s internal controls and financial discipline are not yet ready for the scrutiny of public markets.
- Altman’s Counter: Sam Altman continues to favor a faster IPO timeline and an “all-in” approach to securing compute. In a joint statement released today, the two leaders attempted to project unity: “We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can… any suggestion we are divided is ridiculous.”
3. Operational Highlights vs. Hurdles
While growth has slowed, OpenAI remains the dominant force in the AI sector with significant “moats” still in place.
- Enterprise Strength: Business deals now account for 40% of revenue and are on track to reach parity with consumer subscriptions by the end of 2026.
- API Dominance: OpenAI’s APIs currently process more than 15 billion tokens per minute, serving as the backbone for much of the AI-native startup ecosystem.
- Cost Cutting: To preserve capital, the company has reportedly scaled back or paused several non-core projects, including the standalone Sora video generation application.