New York, April 28, 2026, 18:06 (EDT)
Shares of Oracle and CoreWeave dropped sharply Tuesday, dragging down other AI-related names, after the Wall Street Journal reported OpenAI fell short of its latest revenue and user goals. The miss has rekindled concerns about the ChatGPT developer’s ability to bankroll its data-center expansion.
This shift is significant: OpenAI links together a tangle of cloud, chip, and funding arrangements that have propelled the AI rally. The question investors are pushing now is blunt—can actual demand for AI products cover the steep costs of compute, chips, and the data-center muscle behind them.
Not the most convenient moment for OpenAI: the company is reportedly preparing for an IPO that could fetch a valuation as high as $1 trillion, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and other big names in tech are all set to update investors on AI demand and spending in the coming days.
Oracle shares slipped roughly 4.0% to $165.96, while CoreWeave dropped 5.9% to $105.53, based on the most recent U.S. market data. Nvidia edged down 1.6%; AMD lost 3.4%; Arm Holdings slid 8.0%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF fell 3.7%, reflecting broader selling well beyond OpenAI’s cloud affiliates.
OpenAI fell short of a handful of monthly revenue targets this year, sources told The Journal, as Anthropic made headway with coders and corporate clients. ChatGPT also didn’t reach OpenAI’s own benchmark of one billion weekly active users by the end of 2025, according to the report.
OpenAI pushed back hard. CEO Sam Altman and CFO Sarah Friar told Reuters, “This is ridiculous. We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can,” brushing off claims of internal disagreement over infrastructure spending. In a separate statement to Axios, OpenAI said Codex, its AI coding tool, logged 4 million users and described the company as “firing on all cylinders.” Reuters
Investors see Oracle as particularly at risk, with reports tying the company to a $300 billion, five-year cloud agreement with OpenAI. On Tuesday, Oracle’s five-year credit default swaps—a key gauge of debt-insurance costs—hit a two-week high, according to Reuters. Shares in CoreWeave, which inked an $11.9 billion deal with OpenAI last month, also slid.
Oracle on Tuesday reiterated its enthusiasm for the OpenAI partnership, emphasizing ongoing efforts to boost capacity for the AI player, per an emailed statement cited by Bloomberg News and picked up by Investing.com. CoreWeave, for its part, described OpenAI as a solid collaborator but made clear it serves plenty of other clients, flagging broader demand as AI inference — running trained models in real time — gains traction.
Competition has gotten tougher. According to Axios, investors now view Anthropic and Google’s Gemini as making gains in certain segments—Anthropic leaning into enterprise, Google having an edge with consumers. The Journal also pointed to Anthropic turning up the heat in coding and business-related areas.
On Monday, Microsoft and OpenAI reshaped their partnership, scrapping Microsoft’s exclusive rights to distribute OpenAI models. OpenAI now has the freedom to offer its products on rival cloud platforms. Still, Microsoft hangs onto its spot as OpenAI’s top cloud partner, with Azure getting first dibs on new OpenAI products—unless Microsoft either can’t or opts not to provide the required support.
Not everyone’s convinced the AI rally is over. Ben Reitzes, managing director at Melius Research, told Bloomberg Television he’s not seeing investors back off after just one lackluster report. Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert Financial, put it plainly to Axios: those selling on the assumption that the AI story is about to fall apart will probably end up let down.
Some pointed to concentration risk after the selloff. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Anurag Rana flagged a ripple effect across the AI infrastructure space, suggesting Oracle faces the greatest risk if OpenAI scales down computing demand. Allan Small, senior investment adviser at Allan Small Financial Group with iA Private Wealth, told Reuters he’s seeing more signs of rising competition than an actual slowdown in the sector.
There’s risk on either side here. Should OpenAI raise prices, land more enterprise deals, or keep scaling up Codex, Tuesday’s action could end up looking like a flush-out in a crowded trade. But with revenue still trailing costs, the squeeze would move from OpenAI’s own private valuation onto the public firms backing, funding, and powering its AI infrastructure.
