Tech
tech
Jon Keegan

Report: OpenAI scrambles to find new revenue in its 5-year business plan

After a flurry of enormous (and confusing) deals, OpenAI has committed to spending more than $1 trillion with various partners in the AI ecosystem. Now it has to figure out how to pay for it all.

The Financial Times has some details of OpenAI’s five-year business plan and how it’s exploring “creative” ideas to secure more capital.

Among the elements of the plan:

OpenAI is currently pulling in $13 billion in annual recurring revenue, with 70% of that coming from consumer ChatGPT subscriptions, according to the report. But it also plans on burning $115 billion through 2029.

OpenAI makes five-year business plan to meet $1tn spending pledges

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Among the elements of the plan:

OpenAI is currently pulling in $13 billion in annual recurring revenue, with 70% of that coming from consumer ChatGPT subscriptions, according to the report. But it also plans on burning $115 billion through 2029.

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tech
Rani Molla

Tesla’s Chinese-made EV sales jumped 10% in November

Tesla sales from its Shanghai plant jumped 10% in November, only the third time those sales have risen in a month this year, Bloomberg reports. These figures don’t break down what share of sales are within China — Tesla’s second biggest market — or exported, but typically most made there are sold locally.

The news is a rare bright spot these days for the company’s car sales, which are continuing to decline in much of the world amid fierce competition, especially from Chinese automakers, against Tesla’s aging lineup. The FactSet analyst consensus expects Tesla’s global sales to drop 7% in 2025, the second annual decline in a row.

tech
Rani Molla

Apple retires AI head to show it’s serious about AI

Yesterday Apple announced that its AI head, John Giannandrea, who presided over the company’s largely subpar endeavors into generative AI, would retire at the relatively young age of 60.

Giannandrea is set to leave the company this spring — right around the time Apple’s long-delayed, AI-powered Siri is expected to debut, with Microsoft’s corporate VP for AI, Amar Subramanya, taking the reins.

The move signals that Apple, which has invested far less in AI than its Big Tech peers — and has comparatively little to show for it — is finally getting serious about the technology. The company put it this way: “This moment marks an exciting new chapter as Apple strengthens its commitment to shaping the future of AI for users everywhere.”

John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

John Giannandrea to retire from Apple

The move signals that Apple, which has invested far less in AI than its Big Tech peers — and has comparatively little to show for it — is finally getting serious about the technology. The company put it this way: “This moment marks an exciting new chapter as Apple strengthens its commitment to shaping the future of AI for users everywhere.”

tech
Rani Molla

OpenAI declares “code red” on Google three years after Google declared “code red” on OpenAI

Google’s recent AI hot streak, which includes the much-lauded release of Gemini 3 last month, has OpenAI worried — so much so that CEO Sam Altman has declared a “code red” to improve its flagship product, ChatGPT, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Scholars of chatbot history might remember that after OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, Google declared a “code red” to fight the existential threat the new AI technology posed to Google’s Search dominance.

And here we are today!

tech
Rani Molla

Tesla sales continued to fall in Europe last month — but there were a few bright spots

Tesla’s self-proclaimed “weakest market” continued to look weak in November, as sales mostly kept dropping year over year across European countries, including Sweden, France, and Spain, Reuters reports.

However, there were a couple of notable bright spots for Tesla, which has suffered due to strong competition and an aging lineup. In Norway, as consumers face the end of certain EV subsidies, Tesla sales jumped 175% in November and about 35% for the first 11 months of 2025. Meanwhile, in Italy, sales increased 58% year on year after declining for six months. From January to November, Tesla sales fell 28% there.

tech
Jon Keegan

More AI startups are reportedly turning to free Chinese AI models

The biggest tech companies in the world, like OpenAI, Google, and Meta, are racing to build dozens of gigawatts of AI computing infrastructure to meet what they say is incredibly high demand.

But free, open-weight Chinese AI models like DeepSeek and Qwen have been rapidly catching up to the leading frontier models.

According to a report from NBC News, more AI startups are deciding that these Chinese models might be cheap enough and good enough to pass on the state-of-the-art offerings from OpenAI, Meta, and Google. This, of course, would be very bad news for the AI capex orgy that is currently consuming the tech sector.

As the huge, all-purpose models try to do it all, startups are taking advantage of these open-weight models, which can be distilled and customized for specific applications, and usually for a much lower cost.

More of Silicon Valley is building on free Chinese AI

More of Silicon Valley is building on free Chinese AI

According to a report from NBC News, more AI startups are deciding that these Chinese models might be cheap enough and good enough to pass on the state-of-the-art offerings from OpenAI, Meta, and Google. This, of course, would be very bad news for the AI capex orgy that is currently consuming the tech sector.

As the huge, all-purpose models try to do it all, startups are taking advantage of these open-weight models, which can be distilled and customized for specific applications, and usually for a much lower cost.

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