OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently disclosed that the company's annual revenue significantly surpasses $13 billion, expressing a degree of frustration when questioned about how OpenAI plans to finance its substantial spending commitments. These remarks were made during a joint interview on the Bg2 podcast, where Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discussed the partnership between their respective companies. The host, Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, highlighted reports indicating OpenAI's revenue was around $13 billion, which, while considerable, is overshadowed by over $1 trillion in computing infrastructure spending commitments for the next decade.

Altman firmly rebutted the reported revenue figure, stating, "First of all, we’re doing well more revenue than that." He then challenged any skepticism regarding the company's financial health, suggesting, "Second of all, Brad, if you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer. I just — enough. I think there are a lot of people who would love to buy OpenAI shares." Gerstner himself interjected, expressing his own interest in acquiring shares. Altman further emphasized that critics who voice "breathless concern about our compute stuff" would likely be eager to purchase OpenAI shares.

While Altman acknowledged that there are "not many times" when he desires OpenAI to be a public company, he noted that one such rare occasion arises "when those people are writing these ridiculous ‘OpenAI is about to go out of business’ [posts], I would love to tell them they could just short the stock, and I would love to see them get burned on that." He conceded that potential pitfalls exist, such as failing to secure adequate computing resources, but affirmed that "revenue is growing steeply."

Altman outlined the company's ambitious forward bet on continued growth, projecting not only the sustained expansion of ChatGPT but also the evolution of OpenAI into a significant AI cloud provider, the establishment of its consumer device business as an important entity, and the generation of immense value through AI's capacity to automate science. Satya Nadella, who found humor in much of Altman's response, corroborated OpenAI's robust performance, asserting that the company has "beaten" every business plan it has presented to Microsoft as an investor.

Later in the interview, Gerstner revisited the topic of OpenAI's revenue and potential IPO, speculating about the company reaching $100 billion in revenue by 2028 or 2029. Altman confidently countered with "How about ‘27?" However, he dispelled rumors of a specific IPO plan for the following year. "No no no, we don’t have anything that specific," Altman clarified. "I’m a realist, I assume it will happen someday, but I don’t know why people write these reports. We don’t have a date in mind, we don’t have a board decision to do this or anything like that. I just assume it’s where things will eventually go."