The story behind the cartoon
OpenAI has cut the target for its latest funding round by $10 billion and is now seeking about $20 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation, the Financial Times reported on October 30, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The company had earlier planned to raise $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion valuation, and set October 30 as the deadline for investors to commit. The round's first close is expected to come in below $20 billion after some investors reduced their allocations, according to the report, which was relayed by Reuters the same day.
The retreat lands at the end of a brutal week for AI stocks, driven by concern over how much the largest AI companies are spending on data centers, chips and power, and how quickly that spending will pay off. The Nasdaq fell 2.9% on Friday and is down 7.8% from its October 6 all-time closing high. OpenAI was racing to secure commitments before rival Anthropic's expected public-market debut in mid-November, with both frontier labs drawing on many of the same deep-pocketed backers, Reuters reported earlier in October.
OpenAI declined to comment on the funding-round changes, and the final terms are still being worked out, including whether the $1.25 trillion valuation holds once commitments are counted. Even at the reduced target, a $20 billion raise at $1.25 trillion would still be one of the largest private financings ever attempted — and roughly 50% above the $852 billion valuation set in the company's completed financing earlier this year.
The joke takes the markdown literally: the worried OpenAI robot holds up a giant $1.4T price tag, slashed in red down to $1.25T, while the investors walk out the door with their wallets still in their pockets. The fundraising-round checklist says the rest — $30B unchecked, $20B checked, $10B cut. The hottest company in the world, haggling with itself in public.
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