Where Is OpenAI's Money Going?

OpenAI reported $12 billion in losses for Q3 2025 according to Microsoft's SEC filings, raising questions about the company's financial sustainability. Despite CEO Sam Altman claiming revenues "well more" than $13 billion for 2025, analysis suggests actual revenue may be closer to $8 billion. The company has committed to massive cloud computing deals totaling over $1.4 trillion over 8 years with AWS, Oracle, CoreWeave, and Microsoft Azure. By 2027, monthly compute costs alone could exceed $11 billion, while the company employs only 3,000 people compared to Meta's 78,000 and Microsoft's 200,000. Financial discrepancies between reported figures and actual spending patterns suggest OpenAI's inference costs may be significantly higher than publicly stated.