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Good Morning,
I’ve been following the Elon Musk trial vs. OpenAI and Sam Altman and there’s reason to believe OpenAI is on a downward spiral. To put it bluntly, OpenAI’s momentum has now been overtaken by that of Anthropic, Google and other AI labs. I’m not sure how it rebounds from this. In terms of LLMs and AI products this is how I see the ecosystem and companies with positive momentum and who are falling behind.
It took me many hours and many days to compile this, so I hope you enjoy it. Pre IPO for the biggest three AI IPOs in history in Anthropic, SpaceX and OpenA, it’s sort of a big deal.
Who’s Hot 🔥
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Anthropic
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Anysphere (Cursor)
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Google
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DeepSeek: aiming to raise up to $7.35 billion (50 billion yuan) at a valuation potentially reaching $50 billion.
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Moonshot AI: $2 billion in a new funding round.
Who is Not 🤯
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OpenAI: credibility loss, investors doubts and scaling back compute
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Microsoft: lagging in internal models and reputation
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Meta: poor execution and exodus of talent
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Amazon
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Apple
OpenAI’s has Executed Poorly and No longer has a material Compute Advantage
OpenAI’s leadership credibility and reputation is also taking a hit from the legal case against them that is being reported on by the media in detail. While Google and Anthropic have executed well in their Generative AI efforts, OpenAI has fumbled their priorities while losing considerable marketshare over the last year. Anthropic’s historical May 6th, 2026 deal with SpaceX AI (formerly xAI) for compute means Anthropic is no longer behind in compute. Anthropic signed an agreement with SpaceX to use all of the compute capacity at their Colossus 1 data center.
OpenAI Talent Exodus Continues
OpenAI keeps losing key talent and this week it was head of private equity Paul Zimmerman, who joined Alphabet Inc.‘s Google as Managing Director and Global Head of Private Equity. Meanwhile, James Dyett, OpenAI’s head of sales, also departed after three years, joining venture capital firm Thrive Capital as Operator in Residence. OpenAI had already lost several key executives and AI researchers earlier in 2026. Meanwhile its poaching more corporate types and executives from SaaS companies in prep for its IPO. I’m fairly skeptical that their Codex campaign on X is even true.
We have to compare OAI with Google, Anthropic and the top Chinese labs at every step now not just in model benchmarks, but in product execution, confidence in their business model, marketshare and revenue momentum (ARR) vs. cash burn. Just months for a supposed IPO later this year, OpenAI do not appear product or confidence ‘ready’.
Anthropic not OpenAI is the AI Company Everyone is Talking About
While SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are all going public in 2026, Anthropic is the one that is actually performing in the space. explained what Silicon Valley and China are noticing too:
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Anthropic Q1 alone $10B ARR to $30B.
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Anthropic in April, 2026 went from $30B to $44B and that’s $96 million in new ARR added every single day.
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OpenAI has not seen similar ARR momentum, in fact their revenue growth has been slowing as they have lost markets to Google and Anthropic in the last year in key areas.
Anthropic on Pace for a $2 Trillion in Revenue by 2030
While it’s not clear when OpenAI will even become profitable (if ever) with tremendous cash burn and losing marketshare in both B2B adn B2C in 2026, Anthropic is succeeding at such a scale it might make both OAI and SpaceX AI irrelevant. OpenAI could find itself obsolete while the debt of partners like Oracle is eye opening. OpenAI is recalibrating its massive compute infrastructure plans, moving from a projected $1.4 trillion in long-term commitments down to approximately $600 billion by 2030. It could end up being an even more extreme scale back. OpenAI have been historically fiscally irresponsible and short-sighted.
Meanwhile Anthropic increasingly has the industry’s wow-factor and the confidence of investors on its side just a few months from going public in an IPO likely in November or December, 2026. The ARR story of Anthropic (good timing) and BigTech ramping up Capex, puts OpenAI in a nearly impossible situation.
OpenAI’s Problematic History
OpenAI was founded on December 8, 2015, by a group including Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever. Its history has been filled with struggle, drama and issues around the honesty and integrity of Sam Altman. While most cofounders have left OpenAI, in the Elon Musk trial it has come to light the extensive financial ties Greg Brockman has to Sam Altman (not loyalty), but financial incentives to remain. So many eye-opening tidbits have come from the Musk OpenAI trial, a few of which we’ll touch upon and go a bit deeper into.
Greg Brockman has Financial Ties to Sam Altman
Furthermore Greg Brockman we learned has a stake in OpenAI of close to $30 Billion. Separately he’s said to have $10 million from Altman. It’s alleged that in 2017, Sam Altman gave Greg Brockman a percentage ownership of Altman’s personal family office. There appears to be conflicts of interest and financial entanglements that the general public and would-be investors were not previously aware of.
According to Reuters and others, the details were shared in court during questioning by a lawyer for Elon Musk (May 4th), who co-founded OpenAI and is now suing the company on grounds that it improperly became a for-profit company, abandoned charitable goals and should turn back into a nonprofit. The various leaks and tidbits from the court case significantly undermine Sam Altman’s leadership credibility and suitability for a company going public.
OpenAI’s Mission has been to Replace People
OpenAI’s officially stated mission is actually to ensure that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)—which they define as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans” at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity. Since late 2022 however we’ve seen a collapse in Entry level opportunities, tech layoffs, lower consument sentiment and a stark lack of ROI from Generative AI products and their capabilities. We’ve also seen OpenAI unable to keep on the frontier of LLMs with AI coding and agentic capabilities.
Did the Sora app that was putting out AI video slop benefit anyone? OpenAI’s failed video AI app. Did a ChatGPT that is and was morbidly sycophantic benefit humanity? OAI’s products clearly mirror Sam Altman’s lack of good judgement and normal ethical standards. He had to be persuaded not to launch an “Adult-mode” version of ChatGPT. The problem is there’s not much sign Generative AI is going to be healthy for society much less good for civilization.
Healthcare and Social Assistance have added nearly 1.8 million private-sector jobs in the US since the end of 2023 while all of other industries combined have lost 127,800 jobs.
Most new jobs in the U.S. have been in healthcare, among the least Generative AI exposed industries:
OpenAI’s Tech is Getting a failing Grade in Improving the lives of Consumers 😡
Three years into OAI’s era of AI, we have to consider the possibility that it has failed in its mission statement. Consumer sentiment is at a record low, and the technology hasn’t open the door to new jobs or more high quality jobs.
The Consumer Sentiment Index fell -1.7 points in May, to 48.2, an all-time low. Americans unable to play the stock market are seeing their futures dissolve into grave financial security anxiety and the prospect of technological automation. Furthermore, the perceived financial situation among Americans declined to the lowest since 2009.
With SpaceX becoming effectively a Neo Cloud for Anthropic’s compute dilemma, xAI and eventually OpenAI may have to concede defeat as they don’t have the capital to keep on competing in this manner. Google, Meta, ByteDance (raising 2026 Capex outlook) and Alibaba on the other hand do.
The ChatGPT maker of course has many legal disputes that are on-going with regard to mental health spiraling, suicides and even mass shootings. Clearly this is not a company that prioritised trust and saftey in any meaningful way. This means trust in their Charter and in Sam Altman’s leadership is likely at an all-time low in mid 2026. If OpenAI is creating toxic products, how can companies trust it as an Enterprise AI or Coding solution?
If OpenAI was a well run company even with the considerable funding advantages in has gotten – it obviously wouldn’t be in this situation. It’s hard to believe the Chatbot maker has received a cumulative total of approximately $190.6 billion in funding to date. The immature antics of Altman that the Musk trial is revealing is flashing red for investors.
Anthropic Mythos might be a Frontier Model that’s a Game Changer
“An early Claude Mythos Preview snapshot we provided METR has a time horizon of more than 2x the next best model on their 80% success rate benchmark”. – Alex Albert, Anthropic
Anthropic Mythos is making OpenAI Look Amateur
While I acknowledge that Anthropic has had the better AI talent relative to OpenAI likely from late 2024 onwards, it’s really starting to show with their new products and bleeding edge models. Similarity it took Google a year of focus to regain an AI-full stack and vertical integration edge over potential disruptor OpenAI. Ironically OAI during that same time period has likely gone significantly backwards in demonstrating real innovation and executing.
The Bear case for OpenAI’s Future is Solidifying
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