Is OpenAI profitable? No — but the $38.5bn everyone quotes is not what it cost to run the company

No. And the gap between the two loss figures being quoted is where most of the confusion sits.

First, where the numbers come from, because it changes how much weight they carry. OpenAI is private and publishes no financial statements. Everything below comes from documents obtained by the writer Ed Zitron and independently verified by the Financial Times, reported in mid-June 2026. OpenAI declined to comment on them. The company has not confirmed, disputed or released any of these figures itself.

For 2025 those documents show **revenue of $13.07 billion** against **total costs and expenses of $34 billion**, producing an **operating loss of $20.92 billion**. Revenue grew steeply — the 2024 comparison is $3.7 billion of revenue against $12.48 billion of costs, an $8.78 billion operating loss — but costs grew faster in absolute terms.

The cost side breaks down as $19.18 billion on research and development, $7.5 billion on cost of revenue, $5.73 billion on sales and marketing, and $1.57 billion on general and administrative.

Now the number you have probably seen: **$38.5 billion**. That is also from the same documents, and it is the net loss rather than the operating loss. The two are nearly $18 billion apart, and the difference is not additional spending.

The gap comes from OpenAI's conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity, which produced a **$41.55 billion loss tied to changes in the fair value of convertible interests and warrant liability**. That is an accounting charge arising from revaluing instruments during a corporate restructuring. It is not compute, salaries or datacentre capacity.

So both statements are true and they answer different questions. *What did it cost to run OpenAI in 2025?* About $20.9 billion more than it earned. *What was the reported bottom line after the restructuring was accounted for?* A $38.5 billion net loss. Anyone saying the company burned $38.5 billion running itself has merged the two.

A note on the other figures circulating. Analyses putting OpenAI's annualised revenue at $25 billion, or at $8.5 billion, are measuring different things at different dates — annualised run-rate at a given month is not the same as booked revenue for a completed year, and neither is comparable to the $13.07 billion above. Mixing them produces margins that do not describe anything real.

What none of this settles is the direction. A company can lose money at this scale deliberately and still be building something durable; it can also do so and not be. Revenue more than tripled year on year, which is the case for the first reading. Costs also rose by more than $21 billion in absolute terms, which is the case for caution. Projections of when losses reverse exist, but they are projections published by third parties, not company guidance, and this article does not repeat them as facts.

One thing that will change the evidence. OpenAI has filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering. If that proceeds, the company will have to publish audited financials on a schedule, and the question at the top of this page stops depending on what leaks.

Open News does not offer investment advice, and nothing here is a view on whether to buy, hold or avoid any security.