Microsoft Earnings Suggest OpenAI Lost $11.5 Billion Last Quarter

Matt Rosoff, writing for The Register:

If Microsoft owns 27 percent of OpenAI, it stands to reason under equity accounting that it bears 27 percent of OpenAI’s losses. Microsoft’s admission that it shaved $3.1 billion off its net income to account for its share of OpenAI losses therefore suggests OpenAI lost about $11.5 billion during the quarter. Microsoft declined to comment beyond confirming that the $3.1 billion loss “this year” referred to Microsoft’s current fiscal year, which started July 1, not the calendar year. So that’s a quarterly loss, not a nine-month loss.

That’s a humongous number for OpenAI given it reportedly generated only $4.3 billion in revenue for the first half of the year, but a sum that won’t hurt Big Daddy Redmond too much given it earned $27.7 billion in net income in the last quarter alone.

A pre-IPO startup is a different animal from an established publicly-held corporation, but an $11.5 billion quarterly loss is quite different from the $20–30-ish billion quarterly profits booked by the big six.

★ Thursday, 30 October 2025