AIWatch.

The opening stages of OpenAI’s unraveling, which I first warned about in January 2024 (if not before), have begun.

To begin with, hardly anyone trusts them anymore, which can’t be great for business.

Take the reaction to OpenAIs Sam Altman’s latest announcement, on Tuesday August 18 (i.e., “earlier today” for those of us on the West Coast), that OpenAI would be pausing, ostensibly for safety reasoning:

Sam Altman@sama

We have paused some frontier RL training to ensure that we can meet the appropriate alignment, security and monitoring standards for the new level of capabilities in front of us. Model progress is now extremely rapid, and we always said we would take action if we felt that model

6:53 PM · Aug 18, 2026 · 173K Views

352 Replies · 108 Reposts · 1.48K Likes

As far as I can tell, hardly anyone believed him.

taoki@justalexoki

there's no way this is the real reason right

Sam Altman @sama

We have paused some frontier RL training to ensure that we can meet the appropriate alignment, security and monitoring standards for the new level of capabilities in front of us. Model progress is now extremely rapid, and we always said we would take action if we felt that model

7:44 PM · Aug 18, 2026 · 60K Views

52 Replies · 5 Reposts · 616 Likes

The best one line translation came from the user @NIK on X:

Slightly elaborated:

Ross Hendricks@Ross__Hendricks

Translation: we need to immediately stop torching cash to provide some semblance of a sustainable business model so we can rush this IPO out the door before the bubble pops RIP “compute shortage/AI bottleneck” bros

Sam Altman @sama

We have paused some frontier RL training to ensure that we can meet the appropriate alignment, security and monitoring standards for the new level of capabilities in front of us. Model progress is now extremely rapid, and we always said we would take action if we felt that model

7:50 PM · Aug 18, 2026 · 13.3K Views

6 Replies · 38 Reposts · 326 Likes

And, here’s where things get worse. It turns out people were very likely right to be skeptical, because The Wall Street Journal’s Berber Jin and Corrie Dribusch just dropped big news:

Berber Jin@berber_jin1

openai has been tossing out a lot of vague ARR numbers, so we decided to take a deeper look. the company grew revenue by just 18% to $6.7 billion from q1 to q2, while its losses sank further into the red not a great sign ahead of an IPO w/ @cdriebusch via @WSJ

10:37 PM · Aug 18, 2026 · 220K Views

35 Replies · 83 Reposts · 583 Likes

and then an hour and half later, Jin dropped still further details, also bad for OpenAI:

Berber Jin@berber_jin1

@cdriebusch @WSJ story is now updated with additional details. openai's losses grew by $3 billion from q1 to q2, to $12.3 billion not a great look given that it added only $1 billion in revenue in the meantime, to $6.7 billion

11:54 PM · Aug 18, 2026 · 58.6K Views

2 Replies · 9 Reposts · 116 Likes

You don’t want your quarterly losses to quadruple right before your IPO.

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It’s safe to say all this is good news for Anthropic:

The Wall Street Journal@WSJ

OpenAI's revenue grew much slower than Anthropic's last quarter, disappointing investors who hoped the ChatGPT maker would start to catch up to its rival on.wsj.com/4zo2o8y

10:52 PM · Aug 18, 2026 · 144K Views

25 Replies · 22 Reposts · 130 Likes

And terrible news for OpenAI.

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Small wonder Nvidia was trying to cover its bets earlier this week:

Gary Marcus@GaryMarcus

Not exactly a vote of confidence in OpenAI. Scoop from @anissagardizy8

Anissa Gardizy @anissagardizy8

SCOOP: We have the details behind one of the largest data center transactions in history. Our story includes the size and complex mechanics behind Nvidia’s financial guarantee—which has been a sensitive point in recent weeks. Spoiler: Nvidia will be the exclusive hardware

4:28 PM · Aug 17, 2026 · 8.85K Views

6 Replies · 22 Reposts · 97 Likes

Still, as Ed Zitron and I have both long noted, if OpenAI goes down the damage could spread:

In short, things could well get wild, very soon.

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