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Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

Leaked OpenAI financials show $38.5B loss and compute burn

TechApocalypse

Comments (201)

  • ChrisArchitect
  • nl
    Revenue is higher than cost of revenue and revenue is growing faster than cost of revenue.We know OpenAI is forecasting $25-30B revenue for 2026. They will be very close to breaking even at those number.Given Anthropic has forecast more revenue than OpenAI and we know has spent less on R&D (cite their desperate scramble for compute capacity!) the rumours of them being profitable this year seem very credible.
  • simonw
    "OpenAI generated $13.07 billion in revenue in 2025"Considering just four years ago they were a research lab with hardly any revenue at all, and no corporate muscles for earning revenue, I think that is a very impressive number.(Sure, they're losing a whole lot of money too. Same goes for almost every other hyper-growth company in the history of tech.)
  • lukeschlather
    The R&D expenditure seems reasonable, and the revenue numbers seem realistic. I have no trouble believing they can be profitable by 2030 or much sooner. What I don't get is how you get from $30B in revenue to a nearly $1T valuation, but that seems almost level-headed compared to SpaceX, and it's not like any of the big tech companies' valuations make much sense in the context of their revenue.
  • JSR_FDED
    Why would revenue continue to grow at this rate?Enterprises are becoming increasingly aware that the best models can be used for planning and then cheaper models for execution - all the way to local models for some tasks.Add in increasing competition from Chinese models… I’m not convinced this revenue growth is guaranteed.
  • chillfox
  • tptacek
    Financial Times:> A person familiar with the matter said the large majority of that jump reflected a non-cash accounting charge linked to the company’s previous structure rather than its underlying operations.> Before OpenAI’s switch late last year to become a public benefit corporation, investors in the company received convertible interest rights rather than conventional equity. Under US accounting rules, those interests were treated as liabilities and periodically revalued as the company’s valuation increased.> As OpenAI’s worth rose, the increased value of those investor rights created a roughly $30bn charge, added the person. The charge is not expected to recur following the restructuring, they said.> Stripping out the charge and other non-cash expenses, such as stock-based compensation of staff and computing credits from Microsoft, OpenAI’s losses were $8bn, according to the person.https://archive.is/wIzZV#selection-1887.0-1890.0
  • cmiles8
    OpenAI likely missed the window to have a successful IPO.A year ago, even 6 months ago, folks would have been still hypnotized by the hype and they would have pulled it off. Today too many people see a burning ship of cash and no moat to justify the burn. The story just isn’t there anymore.
  • BosunoB
    13 billion in revenue, 7.5 in cost of revenue. Can we finally put to bed the idea that inference is subsidized?
  • himata4113
    so they could stop development and research right now and be profitable, considering that gpt 5.5 is often regarded as one of the best models for writing code this is looking pretty good.Let's take another example: If OpenAI grows to 10 times their current size and continue spending the same amount on research and development they would be profitable today without any other changes to their organizational structure.This is shaping up to be a relatively good investment compared to a lot of other companies that have IPO'd in the ~2010 era, the only reason why it looks bad because the numbers are just insane.
  • ungreased0675
    Companies losing that much money a year shouldn’t be allowed to IPO. It leaves the public markets holding the bag.
  • HlessClaudesman
    These numbers show that OpenAI is boned. They have no path to profitability and if they raise prices or cut services they will strangle their golden goose.They could have existed indefinitely as a service layer that was reliant on other companies feeling charitable, like Firefox, but they also wanted to get rich.
  • anon
    undefined
  • maxnevermind
    > The reported 2025 figures include $7.5 billion in cost of revenue, $19.18 billion in research and development, $5.73 billion in sales and marketing, and $1.57 billion in general and administrative expenseDoes training of new models go into RnD or cost? And subscription plans' subsidies, are those cost or sales and marketing?
  • bonsai_spool
    How does this compare to SpaceX? I’m very much not an accountant, hard to know what numbers to compare directly
  • arjie
    Of which $30b is a non-recurring loss due to the way they do stock grants. That seems incredible. The company is going to moon on IPO.
  • bitmasher9
    It’s a big number. I wonder what steps we will see to raise revenue leading up to an IPO, and specifically if they’ll cut off the OpenAI subscription that is powering my Open claw install. They have been quite friendly with using the oauth tokens in various harnesses.
  • anon
    undefined
  • N_Lens
    Ed Zitron was right all along?!
  • jbird99
    In a surprise to no one.
  • feverzsj
    Literally, the largest scam ever made.
  • mdavid626
    Feels like fraud to me. Everything depends on exponential growth. “Trust me, bro”
  • supertroop
    Musk hiding is Ai inside spacex seems strategic now. Ai forward companies can’t hide losses, but a conglomerate can hide that. Might give grokursor new life.
  • zuzululu
    I'm super happy for them and AnthropicThey are leading the way
  • anon
    undefined
  • throw310822
    > OpenAI's spending mix shows why. The reported 2025 figures include $7.5 billion in cost of revenue, $19.18 billion in research and development, $5.73 billion in sales and marketing, and $1.57 billion in general and administrative expenseHow the hell did they spend 5.7 billion in "sales and marketing"?
  • Der_Einzige
    Daily reminder that API pricing for both OpenAI and Anthropic is profitable today and that the cost of tokens for existing models falls sharply over time for a variety of reasons (unless we go into a far worse hardware inflationary environment than we are in today).The only thing any of them are losing money on is the 200$ a month plans, and you betchya that they're moving as many enterprises to per token pricing as possible rapidly.If you're not investing in these companies when they IPO and ideally before that if you are lucky enough to be rich, you deserve to not reap what you didn't sow.
  • codelong888
    [flagged]