OpenAI’s Financial Scrutiny Intensifies as Leaked Documents Reveal Revenue and Compute Costs
After a whirlwind year of deals and speculation surrounding a potential IPO, OpenAI finds itself under increased financial scrutiny. Recently leaked documents, obtained by tech blogger Ed Zitron, shed light on OpenAI’s financials, specifically highlighting its revenue and compute costs over the past few years.
According to Zitron’s findings, in 2024, Microsoft received $493.8 million in revenue share payments from OpenAI. This number significantly escalated to $865.8 million in the first three quarters of 2025, indicating a substantial growth in revenue sharing between the two companies.
Reports suggest that OpenAI shares 20% of its revenue with Microsoft as part of a previous agreement, where Microsoft had invested over $13 billion in the AI startup. Additionally, Microsoft reciprocates by sharing revenue with OpenAI from Bing and Azure OpenAI Service, with an estimated 20% kickback from these services.
However, the leaked documents present a complex financial landscape, as Microsoft’s net revenue share excludes the royalties paid to OpenAI from Bing and Azure OpenAI. As Microsoft does not disclose specific earnings from these services in its financial reports, the exact revenue share remains elusive.
Based on the reported 20% revenue-sharing agreement, OpenAI’s revenue is estimated to have surpassed $2.5 billion in 2024 and reached around $4.33 billion in the initial months of 2025. CEO Sam Altman foresees even more substantial revenue growth, projecting figures well beyond $13 billion annually and potentially reaching $100 billion by 2027.
On the expenditure side, OpenAI’s inference costs have surged from approximately $3.8 billion in 2024 to about $8.65 billion in the first three quarters of 2025. Inference costs encompass the computational resources required to operate trained AI models for generating responses.
While OpenAI predominantly relies on Microsoft Azure for computing access, it has also engaged with other cloud service providers like CoreWeave, Oracle, AWS, and Google Cloud. Previous reports indicate that OpenAI’s compute spending was approximately $5.6 billion in 2024, with a cost of revenue at $2.5 billion for the first half of 2025.
The financial data suggests that OpenAI may be spending more on inference costs than it generates in revenue, raising concerns about the company’s profitability. This scenario fuels ongoing discussions within the AI industry about the sustainability of massive investments and high valuations in the sector.
OpenAI declined to provide comments on the leaked information, while Microsoft did not respond to requests for input. As the AI industry continues to evolve, the implications of OpenAI’s financial dynamics remain a topic of interest and speculation among industry observers.
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