OpenAI Kills Sora, Guarantees PE Firms 17.5% Returns As Anthropic Eats Its Enterprise Lunch

OpenAI is in full scramble mode. In the past two weeks, the Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) partner has killed its Sora video app, torpedoed a $1 billion deal with Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS), announced a desktop “superapp” merging three separate products, and started offering private equity firms a guaranteed 17.5% minimum return.

OpenAI’s head of applications Fidji Simo described the situation as “very much acting as if it’s a code red.”

Very Expensive Capital

OpenAI is offering private equity firms a guaranteed minimum return of 17.5% to join a $10 billion joint venture that would embed its models across PE portfolio companies.

Not everyone is buying it. Thoma Bravo, one of the largest software-focused buyout firms in the world, walked away after managing partner Orlando Bravo “raised questions about the long-term profit profile.”

Former BlackRock portfolio manager Edward Dowd called the 17.5% guarantee “very expensive capital, very expensive,” and questioned whether OpenAI can sustain financing costs at that rate.

Anthropic Is Running Away With Enterprise

Anthropic’s grip on enterprise AI has tightened fast. Its annualized revenue recently blew past $19 billion after adding $6 billion in February alone, according to Bloomberg. That figure sat at $9 billion as recently as the end of 2025. Claude Code, the agentic coding tool driving much of the growth, has crossed $2.5 billion in run-rate revenue on its own.

On the All-In Podcast, Chamath Palihapitiya said his firm 8090 is “all Anthropic all the time” on the enterprise side, calling the technical output “head and shoulders above anything else.”

No More Sora

OpenAI killed the Sora video app on March 24, blindsiding Disney in the process. Reuters reported that Disney and OpenAI teams were actively working together on Monday evening, only to learn 30 minutes later that the product was dead.

Disney had agreed to invest $1 billion in OpenAI and license over 200 characters for Sora-generated content. No money had changed hands.

What Prediction Markets Say

On Polymarket, traders give Anthropic a 68% chance of going public before OpenAI. A separate contract on who has the best AI model by June prices Anthropic at 66% and OpenAI only at 6%.

Unless a new model changes the narrative before the IPO roadshow, prospective investors will have many questions and few answers.

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