OpenAI lost $38.5B in 2025 despite revenue growth, eyes IPO
OpenAI lost $38.5 billion in 2025, a huge leap from its $5.09 billion loss the year before, even though its revenue grew from $3.7 billion to $13.07 billion.
The company also missed its own revenue target by about 35%, raising questions as it gets ready for a possible IPO later this year.
OpenAI's for-profit switch added investor liabilities
Most of the loss comes from OpenAI switching to a for-profit model, which added major investor liabilities and hit its finances hard under US rules.
Even after removing one-time costs, they still lost about $8 billion in 2025.
A big chunk of spending went to Microsoft—$17.2 billion—with much of that fueling AI research and development.
OpenAI revenue versus mounting expenses
With an IPO on the horizon, everyone's watching to see if OpenAI's fast-growing revenues can keep up with its sky-high expenses and ambitious plans, or if these losses are a sign of trouble ahead.