OpenAI's Reach Is Evident in Tech Selloff - Heard on the Street -- WSJ

By Dan Gallagher

The mere possibility that OpenAI is not growing as fast as it wants to is a rather expensive problem.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday that the ChatGPT parent recently missed its internal targets for new users and revenue. That apparently has Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar worried about OpenAI's ability to pay for future computing contracts. OpenAI denied that it is pulling back on contracts or that there is friction between Friar and Chief Executive Sam Altman as the company pursues an initial public offering for later this year.

That didn't stop investors from selling down the names that are most exposed to OpenAI's future expansion plans. Chip titan Nvidia fell more than 3% while Broadcom slipped more than 5% in midday trading. That cost the two nearly $280 billion in combined market value. Other major chip names like AMD, Intel and Arm Holdings also fell, which took down the PHLX Semiconductor Index by 4.6%.

Cloud operators and data-center equipment providers also fell hard, given that OpenAI has struck ambitious computing deals across the cloud market. Oracle lost nearly 4% while CoreWeave shed more than 5%. Oracle's backlog of cloud computing revenue yet to be recognized is more than $550 billion-which is larger than the respective backlogs at Amazon and Google-primarily resting on a $300 billion deal Oracle struck with OpenAI last year. Server makers Dell, Super Micro and Hewlett Packard Enterprise all shed between 3% and 6%. The Nasdaq Composite was down more than 1%.

Interestingly, Microsoft has escaped the damage so far, with its shares up slightly Tuesday. The software giant was OpenAI's original computing partner and is still one of its largest backers, but the two companies just amended their deal in a way that gives OpenAI more freedom to partner with other cloud computing providers while Microsoft retains access to OpenAI's technology through 2032.

"OpenAI wants to be more multi-cloud while Microsoft wants to be more multi-model, such that diversification seemed inevitable," UBS analyst Karl Keirstead wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday.

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April 28, 2026 12:46 ET (16:46 GMT)

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