OpenAI's Momentum is Spiraling Down ▼
OpenAI isn't IPO ready when compared to Anthropic, and that's a credibility problem. Remember, OpenAI is roughly 5 years and 3 months older than Anthropic.
Good Morning,
I’ve been following the Elon Musk trial vs. OpenAI and Sam Altman and there’s reason to believe OpenAI is on a downward spiral. To put it bluntly, OpenAI’s momentum has now been overtaken by that of Anthropic, Google and other AI labs. I’m not sure how it rebounds from this. In terms of LLMs and AI products this is how I see the ecosystem and companies with positive momentum and who are falling behind.
It took me many hours and many days to compile this, so I hope you enjoy it. Pre IPO for the biggest three AI IPOs in history in Anthropic, SpaceX and OpenA, it’s sort of a big deal.
Who’s Hot 🔥
Anthropic
Anysphere (Cursor)
Google
DeepSeek: aiming to raise up to $7.35 billion (50 billion yuan) at a valuation potentially reaching $50 billion.
Moonshot AI: $2 billion in a new funding round.
Who is Not 🤯
OpenAI: credibility loss, investors doubts and scaling back compute
Microsoft: lagging in internal models and reputation
Meta: poor execution and exodus of talent
Amazon
Apple
OpenAI’s has Executed Poorly and No longer has a material Compute Advantage
OpenAI’s leadership credibility and reputation is also taking a hit from the legal case against them that is being reported on by the media in detail. While Google and Anthropic have executed well in their Generative AI efforts, OpenAI has fumbled their priorities while losing considerable marketshare over the last year. Anthropic’s historical May 6th, 2026 deal with SpaceX AI (formerly xAI) for compute means Anthropic is no longer behind in compute. Anthropic signed an agreement with SpaceX to use all of the compute capacity at their Colossus 1 data center.
OpenAI Talent Exodus Continues
OpenAI keeps losing key talent and this week it was head of private equity Paul Zimmerman, who joined Alphabet Inc.‘s Google as Managing Director and Global Head of Private Equity. Meanwhile, James Dyett, OpenAI’s head of sales, also departed after three years, joining venture capital firm Thrive Capital as Operator in Residence. OpenAI had already lost several key executives and AI researchers earlier in 2026. Meanwhile its poaching more corporate types and executives from SaaS companies in prep for its IPO. I’m fairly skeptical that their Codex campaign on X is even true.
We have to compare OAI with Google, Anthropic and the top Chinese labs at every step now not just in model benchmarks, but in product execution, confidence in their business model, marketshare and revenue momentum (ARR) vs. cash burn. Just months for a supposed IPO later this year, OpenAI do not appear product or confidence ‘ready’.
Anthropic not OpenAIm is the AI Company Everyone is Talking About
While SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are all going public in 2026, Anthropic is the one that is actually performing in the space. David Sacks explained what Silicon Valley and China are noticing too:
Anthropic Q1 alone $10B ARR to $30B.
Anthropic in April, 2026 went from $30B to $44B and that's $96 million in new ARR added every single day.
OpenAI has not seen similar ARR momentum, in fact their revenue growth has been slowing as they have lost markets to Google and Anthropic in the last year in key areas.
