AI Hustle: Make Money from AI and ChatGPT, Midjourney, NVIDIA, Anthropic, OpenAI OpenAI’s Profit Crisis Linked to Huge Microsoft Payments
Nov 18, 2025
The podcast dives into the financial intricacies between OpenAI and Microsoft. Leaked documents reveal staggering payments to Microsoft, escalating investor concerns. Jaeden breaks down a complex 20% revenue share deal and the implications of reciprocal revenue flows. Analysis shows OpenAI's inference costs skyrocketing, raising questions about industry profitability. As the company shifts compute partners, conflicting reports on expenses emerge, painting a blurry picture of its financial health.
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Microsoft's Large Revenue Share
- Leaked docs show Microsoft received large revenue-share payments from OpenAI, rising from $493.8M in 2024 to $865.8M in the first three quarters of 2025.
- The payments align with an alleged 20% revenue-share tied to Microsoft's multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI.
Reciprocal Money Flows Cloud Accounting
- Microsoft appears to both pay OpenAI for Azure/OpenAI services and receive a revenue share from OpenAI, creating reciprocal flows that complicate public accounting.
- Microsoft does not break out Bing or Azure OpenAI revenue in its filings, making external estimates uncertain.
Inference Costs Have Exploded
- Leaks estimate OpenAI inference spend jumped from about $3.8B in 2024 to $8.65B in the first nine months of 2025.
- Inference (serving user requests) consumes large cash outlays even when training spend is covered by credits.