By Danny Vena, CPA
Publication Date: 2026-04-28 18:31:00
Monday, the stock market was on fire, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite both hitting new all-time highs, and optimism reigned. The mood turned dour on Tuesday morning as a report about one of the most consequential stocks in artificial intelligence (AI) caught investors off guard, sending AI chip stocks tumbling.
Growth is slowing at OpenAI, as the ChatGPT parent missed internal goals for revenue and user growth, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The company was shooting for 1 billion users by the end of 2025, a goal it has yet to hit, according to the report. If true, this could have important implications for the future of AI.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
The first domino to fall?
OpenAI was arguably the catalyst that kick-started the AI revolution. When ChatGPT was released, it became the fastest-growing consumer app in history, gaining more than 1 million users within five days of its launch in November 2022, and soaring to 123 million monthly active users within three months. Earlier this year, OpenAI announced it had 900 million weekly active users and 50 million subscribers.
To feed this unprecedented demand, OpenAI has spun a web of deals with some of the biggest names in technology — including chipmakers and cloud operators — arguing that compute capacity was the biggest obstacle to its growth. The magnitude of these agreements is staggering, with more than $1 trillion worth of deals inked in 2025 alone:
- Nvidia (NVDA 1.69%): $500…
