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The ChatGPT maker plans to burn though $115 billion by 2029. No company in history has ever lit that much money on fire intentionally, let alone tried funding such a splurge through private markets alone.
There’s a playbook in Silicon Valley: raise some money; build something people want; raise a lot more money; burn it in the pursuit of growth. The core of this strategy is to swap money for time by acquiring talent, companies, infrastructure, and technologies, all in the pursuit of leapfrogging your competition in the burgeoning field you’re disrupting.
Then, if you’re successful in ascending to the top: kick back, up your prices, and rake in the billions.
From Uber to Amazon, Tesla to Facebook, this game plan has worked time and time again. Jokes on late-night talk shows about companies losing money year after year, or paying a billion dollars for then boutique apps like Instagram, have become unfunny fast, as Big Tech has swallowed advertising, apparel, and everything in between.
But no company has ever burned as much money as OpenAI is planning to.
In the last few weeks, major deals with Broadcom and Oracle have thrown into sharp relief just how insane OpenAI’s ambitions are. The Oracle deal alone is worth $300 billion over five years starting in 2027. OpenAI does not have that kind of cash.
In fact, four of the tech world’s big “cash incinerators” — Uber, Tesla, Snap, and Netflix — together burned a pathetic ~$42 billion during their respective heavily cash-burning periods.
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Per The Information, OpenAI is planning on burning $115 billion through 2029. Given that the company raised “only” $40 billion earlier this year — and $64 billion in its lifetime to date, per Pitchbook data — it’s fair to assume that OpenAI will have to dip into the capital markets again to raise another $50 billion to $75 billion to fund its spending splurge.
And OpenAI’s funding needs might not stop there — after that monstrous 2029 spending figure is reached, the company could still be on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars as part of the freshly inked deal with Oracle, which runs for five years and only starts in 2027.
We’re going to need a bigger cap table
Just a few years ago, the idea of raising that amount on the deeply liquid public markets would have been remarkable; the biggest IPO ever was 2014’s Alibaba, which raised $25 billion — a figure that might not cover even a single year of OpenAI’s peak cash burn. Doing it in private markets would have been near unthinkable. Doing it as a complicated entity controlled by a “not-for-profit” entity? Insane.
Last week, the company revealed it had made progress on that last point. The Financial Times reported that OpenAI and Microsoft had signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding” marking “a significant step forward in the start-up’s effort to convert to a more investor-friendly, for-profit structure.” That could unlock a potential IPO, giving institutional and retail investors the ability to invest directly in the company.
But in August, CEO Sam Altman said that an IPO was not a priority, suggesting there’s a very good chance that OpenAI continues to fund its runway via the private scene.
If the company pulls it off — raises all that money and finds a way to make the unit economics of its chatbot work along the way — it will raise a major question: is the stock market doing its primary job? If the most capital-hungry business of all time doesn’t need to raise on the public markets, we may need to rethink our textbook definitions of the stock market. The capital-allocating conduit that’s been the bedrock of American capitalism for more than a century is increasingly about price discovery, liquidity, and risk transfer, and less about capital formation.
What’s most remarkable, though, is that this might be quite an easy feat for OpenAI. Given the pervasive AI mania that we find ourselves experiencing in 2025, it’s hard to imagine that the world’s leading consumer-facing AI company will struggle to find investors for its cap table in the private markets, even at a nosebleed valuation of $500 billion and even with evidence that AI adoption might be cooling.
Related reading: Where did all the stocks go?
Roblox jumps after announcing $3 billion share buyback plan
Roblox rallied in postmarket trading on Tuesday after unveiling its first-ever share repurchase program.
The somewhat controversial, but certainly popular, gaming company has put forth a plan for $3 billion in future stock buybacks, with the intention to back up to $1 billion over the next twelve months. The stock subsequently jumped 4% after-hours.
On Tuesday, Naveen Chopra, Chief Financial Officer of Roblox said:
“Investing in continued growth will always be our highest priority, but the strength of our balance sheet and free cash flow generation allows us to support industry leading innovation while simultaneously reducing dilution.”
As of Q1 2026, Roblox had $6.2 billion in total cash, cash equivalents, and investments (for a net $5.2 billion after subtracting their $1.0 billion dollars in debt). The company posted a consolidated net loss of $248 million in Q1.
While management has the cash on hand for a $3 billion buyback, their stock been taking hits recently — falling 28% over the past month (and 45% since the beginning of the year) as the company adjusts its safety standards. In April, the video game company slashed its full year guidance due to age-verification hurdles which have slowed growth.
Cava rallies after Q1 results impress and management hikes full-year guidance
Cava jumped 8% after the bell on Tuesday after the fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant chain was able to bring in more customers and drive up more revenue than expected in the first quarter, with management signaling that this momentum is poised to continue.
Here are the numbers:
Q1 revenue of $434.4 million (compared to analyst estimates of $418.2 million).
Q1 adjusted EBITDA of $61.7 million (estimate: $57.3 million).
Full-year guidance for same-restaurant sales growth of 4.5% to 6.5%, up from its prior guidance of 3% to 5% and above estimates for 4.95%.
The company also posted traffic growth of 6.8% — blowing away salad competitor Sweetgreen’s traffic decrease of 11.2% in the first quarter.
“We’re creating a bit of a bridge in a K-shaped economy and becoming very accessible for the low-income cohorts,” CFO Tricia Tolivar told Restaurant Dive. “When we look at our restaurant stratified based on median household income, we’re seeing tremendous strength in the lower-income cohorts.”
The performance of these fast-casual establishments (or slop bowl chains) has been a way to keep an eye on our increasingly unequal economy. Interestingly, as especially younger consumers seem to be pulling back, at some of these restaurants, Cava continues to perform well.
AMC rallies after CEO Adam Aron purchases 250,000 shares
AMC popped in postmarket trading after a filing showed CEO, Chairman, and President Adam Aron bought 250,000 shares on Tuesday.
With this $344,350 purchase, Aron now owns more than 2.4 million shares of the theater chain he runs. He’s one of the 20 largest holders, per data compiled by Bloomberg.
Nintendo climbs for third day as China ramps up its memory production
Nintendo shares are climbing on Tuesday, marking the company’s third straight session of gains — something it hasn’t done since early March. The Mario maker’s US-listed ADRs were up about 4% in Tuesday morning trading.
The return of the Switch 2 game bundle appears to have stoked investor optimism in the company’s console sales, while China’s accelerating memory production plans could alleviate some of Nintendo’s pain from the “RAMpocalypse.” For the better part of a year, memory prices have surged as AI demand hoovers up compute power. That’s squeezed video game console makers — and the broader consumer electronics industry.
Tracking the performance of Nintendo ADRs against memory giant Micron helps put this move in perspective. Nintendo is a big memory consumer, and not in the front of the line in terms of securing supply. Micron, obviously, benefits from its offerings being in high demand.
Tuesday’s price action is just a drop in the bucket, and comes as part of a recent stretch where the stock market’s high-flyers are having their wings clipped while beaten-up laggards rally.
In its first-quarter results on Monday, Chinese DRAM producer CXMT said it’s ramping up production and issued bullish guidance. The company is planning an IPO later this year, and it could be China’s biggest of the year.
For Nintendo, more global memory production could see rising costs start to deflate, improving margins in a vital year for its new console.
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