OpenAI's near-$70 billion run rate barely clears the pace Anthropic hit in July

Anthropic's July figure came from a lab that was still speeding up. The company said its run rate went from $30 billion in April to $47 billion in May ^[9], and Axios put it at roughly $65 billion by July ^[8]. That is about 2.2 times the April level, reached in three months ^[6]. OpenAI's late-September number is about 8% above Anthropic's July figure ^[1], and Axios reported that Anthropic's rate kept rising after July ^[8].

The second-quarter gap was wide. On an annualized basis, OpenAI's quarter came to a $26.8 billion pace and Anthropic's to $46.4 billion, a ratio of 1.73 ^[2]. Sarah Friar, OpenAI's chief financial officer, told employees at the time that July's annualized recurring revenue had already passed the second-quarter total ^[5]. That comparison puts a 12-month measure against a three-month one. Any run rate above one quarter's revenue clears it, and the second quarter's own annualized pace was four times the quarter ^[2]. Separately, OpenAI told investors privately that momentum picked up after it released new models in July ^[6].

Reuters noted that a run rate takes a short window of sales and extrapolates it across a year, and can give a distorted picture of where a company is heading ^[12]. The reports disagree on how fast OpenAI's rate moved. The Axios account, as carried by Yahoo Finance, has OpenAI on course for more than $40 billion around July, when Dali Rajic joined as chief revenue officer ^[7]. Crypto Briefing says the rate was just over $40 billion only a month before late September ^[13]. Both accounts agree on the starting level, since a rise of more than 70% to nearly $70 billion implies a start of about $41 billion or less ^[3]. A full quarter at $70 billion would be $17.5 billion of revenue, and a quarter at Anthropic's July pace would be $16.25 billion ^[4]. OpenAI's actual third quarter ran below its closing rate for most of those three months, and well below it if the jump came in one month ^[4].

Anthropic's growth may have stalled after July. Yahoo Finance reports that more customers are spreading their spending across several models to keep token costs down ^[21]. In that case OpenAI probably led the third quarter. Had Anthropic kept anything like its April-to-July pace, OpenAI would still be second. The third possibility is that the two labs build their run rates from different windows, and then the headline figures cannot be ranked at all ^[12]. I think the evidence shows a narrower gap and a lead that has not been proven. That view is wrong if Anthropic's rate stayed near $65 billion through September. For the period after July, Axios said only that it kept rising ^[8].

OpenAI's growth is coming from products it already sells. The company tied the pickup to its July model releases ^[6], and Crypto Briefing names the Codex coding tool as a leading driver ^[20]. At the same time, Sam Altman is pausing development of OpenAI's most advanced models, according to Yahoo Finance ^[19].