Oracle Drops 6% as OpenAI Revenue Comes in $20 Billion Below Prior Reports While Trucked Gas Strategy Raises Data Center Cost Alarms

Oracle shares fell as much as 6.1 percent on Thursday, on track for their biggest one-day drop in 12 weeks, after a Financial Times report revealed OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion at the end of September, roughly $20 billion below the $70 billion figure that had circulated in late September. The gap stemmed from a methodology difference: investors had adjusted OpenAI's numbers upward to be comparable with rivals such as Anthropic, which counts revenue flowing through cloud partners like AWS and Google Cloud, while OpenAI does not. The shortfall rattled AI-linked stocks broadly, with Broadcom falling nearly 4 percent, Nvidia dropping more than 2 percent, and Microsoft losing over 1 percent. The Nasdaq Composite closed down 337 points, or 1.23 percent, at 27,201, while the S&P 500 fell 35 points, or 0.45 percent, to 7,766. The selloff is particularly pointed for Oracle because the company holds a reported $300 billion cloud contract with OpenAI, and lower OpenAI revenue puts the scale of that commitment in question.

Oracle also drew attention for an unconventional infrastructure move. Bloomberg reported the company has been trucking natural gas directly to AI data center sites in Utah and Texas to bypass pipeline delays threatening its expansion timeline, and is weighing extending the strategy to Project Jupiter, its 2.45-gigawatt campus under development in New Mexico. The workaround carries a steep cost: trucked gas runs roughly four times the price of pipeline delivery, underscoring the severity of the power constraints bearing down on hyperscale AI buildouts.

Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported that Oracle is joining Broadcom and SpaceX in pursuing large debt deals to finance AI chip purchases. Broadcom is eyeing more than $50 billion in such financing. Mizuho also added Oracle to its Top Picks list on Thursday. An Oracle insider bought $3.5 million in company stock amid the session's swings, according to Barron's. Oracle is set to trade ex-dividend on October 9 for its quarterly payout of $0.50 per share, payable October 23, equivalent to roughly 1.42 percent of its recent price of $141.34.