Why is OpenAI like this?

If dirty drama was something to sell, OpenAI would have already made a profit.

That’s evident in the strange way the company ChatGPT killed Sora, its short video program – just one drama that seems to be playing out in parallel at Sam Altman’s company. So much so that you could be forgiven for wondering if there is any method to this madness.

Sora’s closure couldn’t have burned more bridges with partners and creators if it tried. Rumored face-saving announcement that Sora has been folded into ChatGPT? It didn’t happen. OpenAI had just announced the new Sora security standards the day before – so why bother when it’s out?

Disney, meanwhile, has yet to finalize its three-year OpenAI deal with OpenAI for Sora licenses. The House of Mouse was blindsided, according to a Reuters report, with executives having a meeting to discuss what Disney could do with the Sora deal yesterday… 30 minutes before OpenAI announced its demise via mail to X.

ChatGPT ads are a bust

There are also unforced errors in OpenAI’s ad category, according to a scoop that appears Information. It seems that the early test of ChatGPT ads (the company’s big money-hunting pivot from the last two months) has burned bridges with participating advertisers. Those advertisers bought more than $200,000 worth of ads each, the industry’s premium table stakes. But they didn’t get the data they needed to know if their ads — which played less — paid off.

Ironically, considering how much OpenAI products promise to automate the world, ad industry veterans say they have to call or email the company to place ads.

And where is the OpenAI manager in all this? Not on Twitter about it; at the time of writing, Altman has not posted on X since Sora was announced. And he doesn’t subscribe to it; his last two blog posts were written six months ago, and both are about Sora. “People produce a lot than we expected per user,” Altman wrote in his latest post.

“We will have to somehow make money to produce videos,” said the CEO, clearly commenting: “please expect a very high change from us.”

It is not played. So where will the money come from, if not from Disney and not from advertising? Shuttering Sora won’t make up for the shortfall in OpenAI’s revenue, which is estimated to be around $1 billion a month. Using ChatGPT for 900 million people a week, all but 40 million of whom are not paying you, is very expensive!

And the money doesn’t come from the Instant Checkout shopping feature OpenAI announced in 2025, which was supposed to attract a million merchants. The company announced Tuesday that Altman is dropping it again.

OpenAI’s race to its IPO

So what does Altman do, exactly? He told OpenAI employees on Tuesday that he was no longer working with the company’s security and safety teams, according to a separate group Information report. Instead, Altman reportedly told them he was focusing on raising more capital and building more data centers.

“Things are moving faster than many of us expected,” Altman added, though guidance they are leaving it was not clear.

Altman, according to the report, is renaming the company’s product group “AGI shipping.” A strange marketing move, given that GPT-5 is nowhere near AGI (Artificial General Intelligence, also known as digital superintelligence) – and OpenAI is still arguing with its partner Microsoft about how to define such a thing if it ever comes.

That is not just an academic debate, as it is reported that Amazon will invest another 50 billion in the company under the condition that it goes public, or AGI is reached.

If there is no real AGI to be used — and there are no signs that OpenAI’s next model, called “Spud,” will get there — there’s nothing left for Altman to do but prepare for an IPO. OpenAI and its main rival Anthropic, which makes Claude, are both on track for public offerings this year. As public companies, they will be able to raise money easily.

But what if there is only one chance to win?

Anthropic, while (sort of) fighting the Pentagon and coming up with its own revenue estimates, is widely seen as a very successful company when it comes to a solid, reliable business. Not for them the Disney deals are smart; they sell targeted AI services to other companies. Currently, the perception among customers is that Claude is for coding and creating AI agents, while ChatGPT is for more people.

It won’t be easy for Altman to change that perception. But it would be easier if OpenAI didn’t try to be a media company that sells ads and lets you make cute Disney character shorts. And in that context, Altman’s latest move begins to make sense. Whether he can convince business customers that he is a trustworthy person – ignore those burning bridges! – it will be another drama altogether.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that it infringes Ziff Davis’s copyright in training and using its AI programs.