OpenAI is spending $20 billion a year more than it makes. That is the headline from leaked audited financial documents obtained by independent journalist Ed Zitron, verified by the Financial Times, and reported by Ars Technica. And it explains just about every strategic decision the company has made in the last year.
The docs show a company that is growing revenue fast but spending even faster. The numbers are audited, so they are not estimates. This is the real balance sheet.
The Numbers
| Metric | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $3.7B | $13.07B | +253% |
| R&D costs | $7.81B | $19.18B | +146% |
| Cost of revenue | $2.65B | $7.50B | +183% |
| Sales & marketing | $1.11B | $5.73B | +416% |
| Operating loss | $8.78B | $20.92B | +138% |
Revenue tripled. Operating loss more than doubled. Sales and marketing costs went up more than 5x. The company is spending more to grow than the growth itself brings in.
Where the Money Goes
The single biggest line item is Microsoft. Of the $19.18 billion in R&D costs, $10.59 billion went to Microsoft in 2025. That is the cost of running OpenAI’s models on Azure infrastructure. It is more than half of all R&D spending and roughly 80% of OpenAI’s total revenue.
This dependency is OpenAI’s biggest financial vulnerability. If Microsoft ever tightened terms or raised pricing, the math gets worse fast.
The Context
The headline net loss number people are sharing is $39 billion, but that includes a roughly $30 billion one-time accounting charge from OpenAI’s for-profit conversion. The adjusted net loss is closer to $8 billion. The operating loss ($20.92B) is the cleaner metric for ongoing business health.
There is one bright spot. Operating loss as a percentage of revenue improved from 237% to 160%. That is still deeply in the red, but the direction is right. OpenAI has told investors it expects to be profitable by 2030.
To get there, it is running two parallel strategies: grow revenue and cut costs. The Partner Network (launched last week, projected $150M in FY27) is the revenue side. Shutting down Sora and killing “side quests” is the cost side. The $150M partner program is roughly 0.7% of the operating loss — useful context for how much more revenue OpenAI actually needs.
What This Means
For ChatGPT users, the near-term impact is probably more price pressure on enterprise tiers and more aggressive upsells. OpenAI has roughly 50 million paid subscribers and about 900 million weekly active users. The free tier is a massive cost center. The paid tiers need to carry more weight.
The $122 billion funding round (closed in March at an $852 billion valuation) buys time. But with $20 billion in annual operating losses, time is expensive. OpenAI is the most important AI company in the world by usage, and it is burning through cash faster than any tech company in recent memory.
Bottom Line
OpenAI has $13 billion in revenue and needs roughly $34 billion to operate. The gap is $21 billion a year. The funding covers it for now. The question is whether revenue can grow faster than costs — and given that R&D alone already exceeds total revenue, that is not a given.
These documents are from 2025. The 2026 numbers could look different. But given that model training costs are only going up, different probably does not mean better.
Sources: Leaked audited financial documents obtained by Ed Zitron, verified by the Financial Times, reported by Ars Technica.
