26-words sentence that wiped out $3.5 billion from Oracle's market value in less than a day

Oracle recently shared a social media post clarifying that the company’s financial relationship with OpenAI is not affected by the Nvidia-OpenAI deal. Oracle shares were trading nearly 2% higher during the day when the company shared the 26-word post.

However, soon after sharing the post, its shares witnessed a sharp reversal.

By the end of trading, the stock closed down 2.79% at $160.06, wiping out an estimated $3.5 billion in market value in a single trading session.“The NVIDIA-OpenAI deal has zero impact on our financial relationship with OpenAI. We remain highly confident in OpenAI’s ability to raise funds and meet its commitments,” read the post shared by Oracle online. The X post was published shortly after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that the widely reported $100 billion investment plan linked to OpenAI was “never a commitment” and would be approached “one step at a time.” According to a Bloomberg report, Nvidia is close to finalizing a $20 billion investment in the ChatGPT maker.

Why the markets reacted

Investors reportedly appeared to focus less on the wording of Oracle’s statement and more on the risks surrounding its large exposure to OpenAI.

Oracle has disclosed a five-year cloud services agreement with OpenAI valued at roughly $300 billion, or about $60 billion per year starting in 2028.OpenAI’s reported revenue for 2025 was about $13 billion, significantly lower than the annual payments implied by the Oracle deal. Analysts and investors have questioned how the AI company will fund those commitments while continuing to spend heavily on computing infrastructure.

Infrastructure costs and funding pressure

To support OpenAI’s workloads, Oracle is expected to invest heavily in data centers, including a major facility in Abilene, Texas. Estimates suggest the project could require around 400,000 Nvidia GB200 chips, costing roughly $40 billion.Oracle has said it plans to raise up to $50 billion in debt and equity this year. In January, bondholders filed a lawsuit alleging the company did not fully disclose the need for additional funding.

Credit rating agency Moody’s has also flagged counterparty risk related to Oracle’s AI investments.

Concerns over circular funding

Market watchers have highlighted what they describe as a circular financing structure: Nvidia funds OpenAI, OpenAI pays Oracle for cloud services, and Oracle buys Nvidia chips to support OpenAI. Any slowdown in one part of that chain could affect the others.Jensen Huang’s comments suggesting a more cautious pace of investment raised fresh questions about OpenAI’s ability to meet long-term obligations, increasing scrutiny of Oracle’s exposure.