Shares of Oracle, CoreWeave, SoftBank, and other firms tied to OpenAI slumped on Tuesday, with those three dropping at least 4% after The Wall Street Journal reported that the ChatGPT maker had missed its own targets for revenue and users.
The report revived investors' worries that technology giants' massive investment in artificial intelligence won't produce the blockbuster profits many expect.
Alphabet, Amazon.com, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms are all scheduled to report Wednesday, with Apple following close behind on Thursday, a run that many expect to test a rally that has helped carry major indexes to recent records.
Tech shares were the biggest decliners in the S&P 500, with the sector falling 1.3%.
“The ice is really thin. The leash is very tight,” said Dan Morgan, portfolio manager and analyst at Synovus Trust.
OpenAI has forged close ties with companies to secure funding and gain access to computing resources, which are essential for training AI systems and providing answers to queries and executing user requests.
Oracle, Nvidia, and SoftBank are among OpenAI's closest partners, and some investors have come to see them as part of the AI leader's ecosystem.
Shares of Oracle lost 4%. CoreWeave, a top cloud-computing partner, fell 5.8%. SoftBank, which has committed more than $60 billion to OpenAI, fell more than 9% in trading in Tokyo—its worst one-day performance since November.
