Gil Luria, an analyst at DA Davidson, said several prominent artificial intelligence companies could be at risk if OpenAI doesn’t get “benefits” from the federal government. OpenAI’s sprawling high-tech trading has helped fuel the S&P 500’s massive rally this year. But a tangled web of financial agreements that ChatGPT bot owner OpenAI has entered into with other technology and chip manufacturing companies has some investors questioning the nature of the vendor’s funding arrangements and connections in the AI ecosystem. Investors are particularly focused on companies that could be exposed to AI-related spending weaknesses, given soaring stock prices and historically high levels of concentration in a few big tech stocks. Luria, director of technology research at Attorney Davidson, sees potential risks for companies that rely on OpenAI to order equipment, such as Oracle and Broadcom. His comments came after OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Fryer said Wednesday that the company is looking to help from the federal government to guarantee funding for infrastructure. She then said that OpenAI was not seeking any government support measures. On Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on social media: “We have not received and do not want any government guarantees for OpenAI data centers.” Message Received Still, Luria said that if OpenAI were to request funding on national security grounds, “the message to the government would probably be getting through.” “OpenAI may actually get what it wants,” Luria said. “The U.S. government has been active in acquiring ownership interests in other companies, and could feed this company as well if the equity sweeteners are generous enough. We also acknowledge that OpenAI could have shown the government a presentation on superintelligence beyond the capabilities of other companies, but we think that is unlikely.” “If sanity prevails and this federal guarantee does not materialize, it may become clear that OpenAI cannot live up to its extravagant promises, in which case we would view the companies supported by OpenAI’s promise as the most vulnerable,” he said. Luria has been questioning Open AI’s nonprofit status for weeks, saying it limits its ability to compete with big tech companies, even as its private market value has ballooned to about $500 billion. OpenAI is not yet profitable and does not expect to become cash flow positive until 2029. Companies at risk Luria emphasized that several companies that benefit from contracts with OpenAI are vulnerable if those contracts are delayed. Luria said those most at risk include semiconductor makers Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices, database management company Oracle, Nvidia-backed cloud computing provider Coreweave, and nuclear energy company Oklo. Despite recent declines, Broadcom, AMD and Oracle have soared 66% to 144% over the past six months through late Thursday. A month ago, AMD announced a deal with OpenAI that could see the AI startup buy up to 10% of AMD’s common stock. In October, Broadcom signed a custom chip agreement with OpenAI to jointly develop and deploy 10 gigawatts of custom AI accelerators starting in 2026. In September, OpenAI signed a five-year deal with Oracle to buy $300 billion in computing power, sending Oracle’s stock price up 36% in one day. Oracle has since fallen 16% in the last month on concerns that the company is overvalued. CoreWeave similarly fell 20% in a month on concerns that most of its business was coming from too few customers. Oklo, which aims to build small modular nuclear reactors, fell more than 22% in the month but rose more than 400% for the year. Oklo does not have a contract with OpenAI, but Sam Altman is a major investor. OKLO 1Y Mountain Oklo stock price performance over the past year.
