Remarkable details about the financial cooperation between OpenAI and Microsoft, one of the most talked about companies in the field of artificial intelligence, came to light through leaked documents obtained by technology writer Ed Zitron. The documents contain information that has not been shared with the public before, regarding revenue sharing and calculation costs throughout 2024 and the first three quarters of 2025.
It is stated that OpenAI will pay a total of $493.8 million in revenue share to Microsoft throughout 2024. It is stated that this figure will increase to 865.8 million dollars in the first nine months of 2025. These payments are allegedly linked to Microsoft’s investment of more than $13 billion in OpenAI, with the software giant receiving approximately 20 percent of OpenAI’s revenues. However, this rate has not been officially confirmed by either OpenAI or Microsoft.
The relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft is bilateral
However, the relationship is not one-way. A source familiar with the matter speaking to TechCrunch states that Microsoft also reimbursed OpenAI approximately 20 percent of the revenues it earned through Bing and Azure OpenAI Service. While OpenAI models are used in the infrastructure of the Bing search engine, cloud access to these models is provided to developers and companies through the Azure OpenAI Service.
According to the source, the revenue share data in the leaked documents includes the amounts calculated by Microsoft based on net income. In other words, Microsoft’s refunds to OpenAI are not included in these numbers. The fact that the total revenue from Bing and Azure services is not stated as a separate item in the financial reports makes it difficult to estimate.
Although the documents do not reveal the entire financial picture, these data shed light on the expenses as well as the revenues of OpenAI, one of the most notable companies in the private capital markets. According to the data in the documents, it can be predicted that OpenAI’s 2024 revenue will be at least 2.5 billion dollars, and its revenue in the first three quarters of 2025 will be at least 4.33 billion dollars. These figures are thought to be lower than actual income. The Information’s previous news also revealed that revenue was approximately $4 billion in 2024 and $4.3 billion in the first half of 2025.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also stated in a recent statement that the company’s annual revenue forecast is well above $13 billion and that this figure will exceed the annualized revenue rate of $20 billion by the end of the year. Altman also stated that this figure could reach 100 billion dollars by 2027.
On the other hand, the company’s operational costs are equally remarkable. According to Zitron’s analysis, OpenAI spent approximately $3.8 billion on inference processes alone in 2024. This figure increased to $8.65 billion in the first nine months of 2025. Inference refers to the processing power a trained artificial intelligence model uses to produce real-time responses. This processing power is largely provided through Microsoft Azure. However, over time, OpenAI also turned to collaborations with CoreWeave, Oracle, AWS and Google Cloud.
In previous reports, it was stated that OpenAI’s total computing expenditure was approximately $5.6 billion for 2024. The “cost of revenue” in the first half of 2025 was around 2.5 billion dollars. According to sources, expenses for training processes are mostly non-cash as they are covered by loans provided by Microsoft. In contrast, expenses for extraction processes involve direct cash payments.
All these data indicate that OpenAI is still making serious cash expenditures to maintain its operations, despite its current revenues. The possibility that the company’s extraction costs may exceed its revenues may cause new discussions about the sustainability of artificial intelligence investments in the sector.