Microsoft & OpenAI: 🤯 $1B+ Secret Deal Revealed! 🔥

Tech & Science

The scrutiny surrounding OpenAI is intensifying, fueled by recently leaked financial documents obtained by tech blogger Ed Zitron. These documents reveal details about OpenAI’s revenue and spending over the past couple of years, particularly its complex relationship with Microsoft. Zitron’s analysis highlights that Microsoft received $493.8 million in revenue share payments from OpenAI in 2024, escalating to $865.8 million during the first three quarters of 2025. This arrangement sees OpenAI share 20% of its revenue with Microsoft, stemming from a previous investment exceeding $13 billion. Notably, Microsoft also contributes revenue to OpenAI – reportedly returning approximately 20% of the income generated by Bing and the Azure OpenAI Service. Bing relies on OpenAI’s technology, and the Azure OpenAI Service provides cloud access to OpenAI’s AI models. It’s crucial to understand that these figures represent net revenue share, excluding royalties Microsoft pays for utilizing OpenAI’s technology within Bing and Azure. Due to Microsoft’s reluctance to disclose specific revenue generated from these services, precise amounts are difficult to pinpoint, though estimates suggest OpenAI’s revenue reached at least $2.5 billion in 2024 and $4.33 billion in the first nine months of 2025 – projections, including those from OpenAI itself, even suggest the company could surpass $20 billion annually by the end of 2024 and potentially reach $100 billion by 2027. OpenAI’s spending on “inference”—the computational power needed to run its AI models—is also substantial, with approximately $3.8 billion spent in 2024 and $8.65 billion during the first nine months of 2025. This inference expenditure is largely cash-based, unlike the training costs, which are predominantly covered by credits provided by Microsoft. The sheer scale of these potential expenditures, coupled with these significant revenue figures, is fueling considerable discussion and some concern about the future of the AI industry as a whole. OpenAI has not yet commented on these figures, and Microsoft declined to respond.