Stories like these almost always ask for comment from the subject before publishing. If the initial numbers were wrong and OpenAI had a problem with it, they could've responded to the reporters at that time or at publish time, but they didn't. It's highly unlikely the original sourcing wasn't tied to OpenAI.
They didn’t mention asking OpenAI for comment on that figure in the original story. They just quoted a person with knowledge of the group’s finances. Nothing about declining to comment.
They asked for comment for the misleading original $40bn base figure.