Microsoft seemingly just revealed that OpenAI lost $11.5B last quarter

Microsoft reported earnings for the quarter ended Sept. 30 on Wednesday after market close and buried in its financial filings were a couple of passages suggesting that OpenAI suffered a net loss of $11.5 billion during the quarter.

Let's look first at page 9 of the official earnings filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which includes the following passage:

That second sentence is important. This isn't mark-to-market accounting, where it takes the presumed value of the investment based on what the market currently says it's worth (that value is a staggering $135 billion) and marks it up or down from its initial investment. This is equity accounting, where OpenAI's gains or losses directly affect Microsoft's net income on its income statement. This is how finance types account for a large but non-controlling stake in another company.

Further along, on page 33, the following appears:

Finally, there's another SEC document containing relevant information from Tuesday's announcement that OpenAI had finalized its transition into a for-profit (optimistic!) company, in which it was revealed that Microsoft is now the owner of a 27 percent stake in the AI upstart.

If Microsoft owns 27 percent of OpenAI, it stands to reason under equity accounting that it bears 27 percent of OpenAI’s losses. Microsoft’s admission that it shaved $3.1 billion off its net income to account for its share of OpenAI losses therefore suggests OpenAI lost about $11.5 billion during the quarter. Microsoft declined to comment beyond confirming that the $3.1 billion loss "this year" referred to Microsoft's current fiscal year, which started July 1, not the calendar year. So that's a quarterly loss, not a nine-month loss.

That’s a humongous number for OpenAI given it reportedly generated only $4.3 billion in revenue for the first half of the year, but a sum that won’t hurt Big Daddy Redmond too much given it earned $27.7 billion in net income in the last quarter alone.

Which is a good reminder that Big Tech is funding the AI bubble and there's plenty of money still left to go around before it pops.

OpenAI did not immediately return a request for comment, but we're sure if we got this wrong we'll hear from them.

One more thing: I believe that $11.6 billion funding number is also new – Microsoft had previously noted the amount of its commitment to OpenAI, but not how much it had actually funded. ®