OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar Says Midterm Backlash Will Not Halt Data Centre Spending

"When I think about the midterms, I need to keep thinking about how do we keep investing to meet that customer demand," Friar told CNBC in an interview at the Citi TMT Leadership Summit in Pebble Beach, California. She said that work rests on relationships OpenAI has built with the large cloud providers, "and it will continue to mean that we raise capital."

Her remarks are the clearest statement yet from OpenAI's finance chief that the company does not intend to slow its infrastructure build after an election in which data centres became a ballot issue. Of 41 local ballot measures across 10 states, voters backed restrictions or rejected pro-development proposals in all but one, according to an analysis by Ballotpedia and additional results compiled by CNBC. Opposition grew over the summer on worries about the environment, higher utility bills and job losses.

Investors have also turned cautious. The Nasdaq suffered its steepest fall in 19 months on Thursday, led by the chipmakers and neocloud operators most closely tied to AI construction, before recovering some ground on Friday. Higher borrowing costs, concern about rising debt and public hostility to the industry have all weighed on the trade.

Friar said she did not think the election had dramatically changed anything for OpenAI, which relies on data centres both to train its models and to serve customers. "If the midterm means more focus on data centers and communities, we're going to keep doing the work to get into those communities and to build trust with them," she said. On Thursday the company published a policy blueprint and a set of commitments that it said would apply to data centres it owns and operates in the future.

"The demand for AI is real," Friar said. "I don't think anyone's arguing with that, or if they are, I think it's a losing argument."

She also said OpenAI is in talks to raise new funding and that the round is still under way, adding that "a good CFO always raises money when she can." CNBC's account of the interview gave the pre-money valuation under discussion as $1.25 billion. That figure is far below the $852 billion post-money valuation OpenAI announced when it closed a $122 billion round in March, and the report did not explain the gap.

OpenAI confidentially filed a draft prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, and Friar said the company is still looking at a 2027 listing. Its main rival is moving faster. Anthropic is aiming to list on the Nasdaq in mid-November, and its prospectus shows revenue for the first nine months of the year up roughly 1,200% to $33.2 billion. Anthropic said it has purchase commitments and lease agreements with an aggregate committed spend of about $895.4 billion, "substantially all of which is related to compute and infrastructure."

That listing, expected within weeks, will be the first time public investors put a price on a leading AI model developer. It will also test whether the infrastructure spending Friar is defending can still win market backing after this week's sell-off.