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- OpenAI said to nearly double headcount to ~8K by end-2026 amid enterprise push
OpenAI said to nearly double headcount to ~8K by end-2026 amid enterprise push
Bay Area Times
March 23, 2026
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Top stories today:
- OpenAI said to nearly double headcount to ~8K by end-2026
- Elon launches Austin-based Terafab to build robotics, AI, space chips
- Palantir’s Maven AI to become Pentagon program of record
- Cursor’s Composer 2 built on Kimi K2.5 base, disclosure questioned
- Tencent launches ClawBot in WeChat, bringing OpenClaw to 1B+ users
- Super Micro co-founder resigns after indictment over smuggling
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All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).
No major events this week.
Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing today’s newsletter (beware of hallucinations):
1. OpenAI said to nearly double headcount to ~8K by end-2026 amid enterprise push
OpenAI has signed a new San Francisco lease, bringing its total footprint to 1M+ sq. ft.
Grow by ~12 employees per day in 2026 is OpenAI’s reported plan.
OpenAI aims to counter Anthropic’s momentum with enterprise customers and fend off competition from Google.
Businesses buying AI for the first time are choosing Anthropic at 3× the rate of OpenAI, Ramp recently said
OpenAI contested Ramp’s data and said, “It’s a bit like saying global lemon sales can be calculated based on my kid’s lemonade stand.”
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3. Elon launches Austin-based Terafab to build robotics, AI, space chips
Terafab would produce chips with 100-200GW/year of compute on Earth and 1TW in space, Musk said, without disclosing timelines:
Tesla and SpaceX will jointly run the project.
The facility appears to be near Tesla’s Austin headquarters and gigafactory.
It is expected to produce edge/interface chips and high-power data center chips.
A speculative rendering of a “mini” AI data center satellite was also unveiled.
The mini satellite would deliver ~100kW of power, Musk said.
The full Terafab is planned to span 100M sq. ft., ~10× Tesla’s Giga Texas
4. Palantir’s Maven AI to become Pentagon program of record, per leaked letter
