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OpenAI's audited 2025 financials show $34 billion in costs and a $38.5 billion net loss, nearly 8 times the 2024 figure

· by Pondero Newsdesk

The short version

Audited financial documents reviewed by journalist Ed Zitron and independently verified by the Financial Times show OpenAI spent $34 billion in 2025 while booking $13.07 billion in revenue, producing a net loss attributable to the company of $38.53 billion.

OpenAI's audited 2025 financials show $34 billion in costs and a $38.5 billion net loss, nearly 8 times the 2024 figure

Audited financial documents reviewed by journalist Ed Zitron and independently verified by the Financial Times showed on June 15 that OpenAI spent $34 billion in 2025 while booking $13.07 billion in revenue, generating a net loss attributable to the company of $38.53 billion. The disclosure arrived weeks before the company's public S-1 registration statement is expected, and it substantially reshapes the financial picture analysts had been working from.

What the documents show

The figures, published by Zitron at Where's Your Ed At and described as independently verified by the Financial Times, cover OpenAI's full 2025 calendar year.

Revenue came in at $13.07 billion. Total costs and expenses reached $34 billion, broken down as: $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 costs. The resulting operating loss was $20.92 billion.

The net loss figure of $38.53 billion is significantly larger than the operating loss because 2025 was the year OpenAI completed its conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity. That conversion triggered a $41.55 billion charge related to changes in the fair value of convertible interests and warrant liability. After removing portions of losses attributed to noncontrolling and redeemable noncontrolling interests, the net loss attributable to OpenAI landed at $38.53 billion. The equivalent 2024 figure was $5.09 billion, making the 2025 result roughly 7.6 times larger. Zitron described it as nearly 8 times the prior year.

At year end, OpenAI reported just over $50 billion in assets, with close to half held in cash.

The documents also detailed OpenAI's financial relationship with Microsoft, which remains its largest compute provider. OpenAI paid Microsoft $17.2 billion in 2025 across four line items: $10.59 billion categorized as research and development expense (believed to cover model training costs), $6.047 billion as cost of revenue, $527 million in sales and marketing, and $42 million in general and administrative costs. OpenAI carried $3.64 billion in liabilities to Microsoft at the close of the year.

On the inbound side, SoftBank paid OpenAI $867 million in 2025, and Microsoft paid $303 million directly, per the documents.

Why it matters

The scale of the loss changes the math on OpenAI's path to profitability at the valuation the company has set as its IPO target. OpenAI has discussed a target above $1 trillion. With $13.07 billion in 2025 revenue against $34 billion in annual costs, the company spent roughly $2.60 for every $1.00 it brought in, per the audited figures Zitron reported.

The Microsoft dependency embedded in those numbers adds a second layer of complexity. OpenAI paid Microsoft more than $17 billion in 2025. That figure amounts to more than half the company's total cost base and nearly 1.3 times its annual revenue. Prospective public investors will need to evaluate whether a rate reset, a renegotiated compute contract, or a shift to owned infrastructure can materially change that ratio before or after a listing.

The timing of the disclosure also matters. These figures surfaced through a journalist and were confirmed by the Financial Times rather than through a formal SEC filing. That gap, between what is now public and what was known inside the company, is likely to draw attention from the 42 state attorneys general who opened an investigation into OpenAI in June 2026 partly over concerns about financial transparency as the company transitions toward a public market.

The nonprofit-to-for-profit conversion accounting is also worth attention. The $41.55 billion fair-value charge that inflated the gross loss before noncontrolling-interest adjustments is a one-time item tied to the structural transition, not an operating cash outflow. But the adjustments that reduced the reported net loss from $60.35 billion to $38.53 billion involve accounting treatments that Zitron noted are not fully explained in the documents he reviewed.

Context

OpenAI raised $40 billion in a funding round in late March 2026 at a $300 billion post-money valuation. SoftBank led that round. The same month, the company filed confidentially with the SEC for a public offering. A public S-1 was expected in late July or August.

The Financial Times had reported in early 2026 that OpenAI's annualized revenue run rate was approaching $12 billion. The audited full-year 2025 figure of $13.07 billion confirms that trajectory, though the cost structure shows the business has not yet found a path to scale where revenue growth outpaces expense growth. Research and development costs alone, at $19.18 billion, exceeded annual revenue.

For comparison, the 2024 figures in the same documents show OpenAI had $3.7 billion in revenue and $12.48 billion in total costs, for an operating loss of $8.78 billion and a net loss attributable to the company of $5.09 billion. Year-over-year, revenue grew roughly 3.5 times while total costs grew roughly 2.7 times. The net loss figure jumped more sharply due to the conversion accounting in 2025.

OpenAI did not immediately comment on the published figures at the time of this writing.

What to watch next

The public S-1 registration statement, when filed, will be the first document where OpenAI is legally required to certify its financial statements and disclose material risks. Investors and analysts will be watching for: whether the 2026 revenue run rate shows sufficient improvement to narrow the cost-to-revenue ratio, how OpenAI characterizes the Microsoft relationship and its pricing terms, and whether the fair-value accounting from the nonprofit conversion surfaces as a point of SEC comment.

The 42-state attorney general investigation, opened in early June, cited concerns that include how OpenAI has managed its transition away from nonprofit status. The burn-rate figures now in public view add financial detail to that inquiry. Whether investigators request the same audited documents, or whether the public S-1 supersedes that need, is a near-term question without a clear answer yet.

Sources