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Rani Molla

Elon Musk asked Mark Zuckerberg to help buy OpenAI

When Elon Musk, the CEO of a combined social media and AI company (xAI), unsuccessfully tried to buy OpenAI earlier this year, he turned to Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of a combined social media and AI company (Meta) for help, new court filings show.

Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and a cofounder of OpenAI, is taking OpenAI to court next March for changing its corporate structure. OpenAI has counterclaimed that Musk engaged in a “years-long harassment campaign” against the startup.

For what it’s worth, Musk and Zuckerberg also have a long-running beef. Neither Meta nor Zuckerberg signed Musk’s letter of intent “about potential financing arrangements or investments,” so it’s still unclear if they’ve buried the hatchet.

Elon Musk asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to join xAI bid to buy OpenAI, filing shows

Elon Musk asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to join xAI bid to buy OpenAI, filing shows

For what it’s worth, Musk and Zuckerberg also have a long-running beef. Neither Meta nor Zuckerberg signed Musk’s letter of intent “about potential financing arrangements or investments,” so it’s still unclear if they’ve buried the hatchet.

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OpenAI’s ARR reached over $20 billion in 2025, CFO says

Sam Altman’s $500 billion artificial intelligence behemoth hit a major financial milestone last year, according to a new blog post over the weekend from OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, as the company confirmed it had hit a more than $20 billion annual revenue run rate at the end of 2025.

Elsewhere in the blog post, Friar spent time addressing the company’s shifting goals, referencing plans to “close the distance between where intelligence is advancing and how individuals, companies, and countries actually adopt and use it.” As has become customary in the AI company press release genre, the CFO was also keen to tout the unending growth of the business, writing:

  • “Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization.”

  • “Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025.”

And, perhaps most importantly for current backers and those keeping an eye on the private company before its rumored mega IPO:

  • “Revenue followed the same curve growing 3X year over year, or 10X from 2023 to 2025: $2B ARR in 2023, $6B in 2024, and $20B+ in 2025. This is never-before-seen growth at such scale.”

That latest figure has certainly set tongues in the tech world wagging, just as the company announced it would begin rolling out ads to free and ChatGPT Go users. It also puts the chatbot giant a fair way ahead of competitors like Anthropic, the company behind Claude.

OpenAI Anthropic ARR race
Sherwood News

A business that scales with the value of intelligence

A business that scales with the value of intelligence

Elsewhere in the blog post, Friar spent time addressing the company’s shifting goals, referencing plans to “close the distance between where intelligence is advancing and how individuals, companies, and countries actually adopt and use it.” As has become customary in the AI company press release genre, the CFO was also keen to tout the unending growth of the business, writing:

  • “Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization.”

  • “Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025.”

And, perhaps most importantly for current backers and those keeping an eye on the private company before its rumored mega IPO:

  • “Revenue followed the same curve growing 3X year over year, or 10X from 2023 to 2025: $2B ARR in 2023, $6B in 2024, and $20B+ in 2025. This is never-before-seen growth at such scale.”

That latest figure has certainly set tongues in the tech world wagging, just as the company announced it would begin rolling out ads to free and ChatGPT Go users. It also puts the chatbot giant a fair way ahead of competitors like Anthropic, the company behind Claude.

OpenAI Anthropic ARR race
Sherwood News

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