Tech stocks drop on a report that OpenAI missed revenue targets
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- A report that OpenAI missed on key 2025 figures is hitting tech stocks on Tuesday.
- The news is comes at a critical juncture for the AI trade.
- SoftBank, Oracle, and CoreWeave, which have struck major deals with OpenAI, were hardest hit.
A report that OpenAI missed some key targets hit the tech sector hard on Tuesday.
The ChatGPT maker fueled a big risk-off move, with investors dumping tech shares as they digested a report from The Wall Street Journal that said OpenAI missed on revenue and other key targets in 2025.
Other metrics the Sam Altman-led firm fell short of include goals for new user growth and its goal to hit 1 billion weekly active users by the end of the year, the report said.
The news comes ahead of OpenAI's hotly anticipated IPO, and is casting more doubt on the AI trade at a time when investors were already concerned about high valuations and whether the billions spent on data centers will be worth it from a return-on-investment perspective.
Here's where US indexes stood around at the 4 p.m. ET closing bell:
- S&P 500: 7,138.80, down 0.49%
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: 49,141.93, down 0.05% (-25.86 points)
- Nasdaq composite: 24,663.799, down 0.9%
In an email to Business Insider, OpenAI called the Journal's report "clickbait."
"The business is firing on all cylinders," the firm said, adding that its enterprise business was "in the best place it has ever been" due to a recent deal with Microsoft and an ongoing "surge" in Codex, OpenAI's coding tool.
SoftBank, Oracle, and CoreWeave — which are among the list of companies that have struck major deals with OpenAI — saw some of the steepest losses.
Here were the most notable moves in the tech sector:
- SoftBank: -11%
- Oracle: -6%
- Coreweave: -6%
- Advanced Micro Devices: -4%
- Intel: -3%
- Nvidia: -2%
- Microsoft: -1%
- Tesla: -1%
- Amazon: -1%
The drop is coming during a big week for tech earnings. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft are reporting first-quarter results after the close on Wednesday and Thursday.
Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities known for his permabull stance on tech, said the decline was partly fueled by investors' concerns that OpenAI was losing market share to its competitors. He said he saw the sell-off as a buying opportunity, as demand from consumers and businesses was likely still strong.
"We believe that recent concerns around OpenAI are overblown with the company having enough capital to fulfill its compute capacity needs over at least the next three years," Ives wrote in a client note.
"Some pushbacks from folks this AM that the article lacked a lot of numerical datapoints on the revenue side, and correlate to the big uptick in Codex usage in recent weeks," Jeffrey Favuzza, a strategist at Jefferies, wrote of the market's reaction to the report.
Meanwhile, concerns about the economic impact of the Iran war are still hanging over markets.
President Donald Trump was reportedly unsatisfied with Iran's latest peace proposal, which sent oil prices climbing again.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose more than 3% to top $111 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude also rose 3% to trade around the $100 mark.
The president followed up with a Truth Social post on Tuesday morning that said Iran told the US it was in a "State of Collapse," adding to the market's confusion.
"They want us to 'Open the Hormuz Strait' as soon as possible, as they try to figure out their leadership situation (Which I believe they will be able to do!)," Trump wrote.
"The oil market is hoping for the best but bracing for the worst," Alex Kuptsikevich, the chief market analyst at FxPro, said in a note of the market reaction on Tuesday.