OpenAI memo says Anthropic inflates $8B run rate
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- OpenAI's Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser sent a four‑page internal memo to staff on Sunday, warning that Anthropic is “grossing up rev share with Amazon and Google.”
- Anthropic's reported $30 billion annual run rate is claimed to be inflated by roughly $8 billion because it includes gross revenue from cloud resellers rather than netting partner cuts.
- OpenAI nets cloud sales directly, a practice the memo says contrasts with Anthropic’s accounting method and underlies the alleged overstatement.
- OpenAI’s memo calls for locking in users, building a moat, and expanding the enterprise business, and it teases a new “Spud” model that will make all OpenAI products “significantly better.”
- The Verge, Gizmodo, Implicator.ai, Semafor, and The Decoder all frame the story as a rivalry and run‑rate dispute, focusing on Anthropic’s alleged inflation.
Why it matters: The memo directly challenges Anthropic’s reported revenue, potentially reshaping investor and partner assessments of its financial health; simultaneously, OpenAI’s emphasis on a new model and enterprise expansion signals its strategic priorities in the intensifying AI competition and could influence market positioning of both firms.
