OpenAI’s Spending Surged to $34bn in 2025 as IPO Looms
OpenAI burned through roughly $34bn in 2025, pouring money into the race to dominate the fast-growing AI market as the ChatGPT maker positions itself for a stock market debut.
A Rare Look at the Spending
According to audited figures confirmed by people familiar with the matter, the company spent about $19bn on research and development and nearly $6bn on sales and marketing, with additional costs on top. These numbers — first shared with the Financial Times by independent journalist Ed Zitron — climbed sharply from the previous year and lay bare the economics powering the AI boom. Above all, they expose how aggressively OpenAI has spent to build models, finance data centres, and recruit elite researchers.
Revenue Races, but Costs Race Faster
Yet the company’s revenue still trails its costs. OpenAI booked roughly $13bn in revenue last year, and by the end of 2025 it was pulling in $2bn a month — up from $1bn a quarter at the close of 2024, a trajectory that ranks it among the fastest-growing businesses in history.
Decoding the $39bn Loss
Even so, heavy spending drove the net loss attributable to OpenAI nearly eightfold higher, from $5bn in 2024 to about $39bn in 2025. However, one person familiar with the matter cautioned that the bulk of that jump stemmed from a non-cash accounting charge tied to the company’s former structure rather than its core operations. Specifically, before OpenAI converted into a public benefit corporation late last year, investors held convertible interest rights instead of conventional equity. Under US accounting rules, those rights counted as liabilities and required periodic revaluation as the company’s worth rose — and as the valuation climbed, the revaluation generated a charge of roughly $30bn. Following the restructuring, that charge should not recur.
Strip out that charge along with other non-cash expenses — such as staff stock-based compensation and computing credits from Microsoft — and the underlying loss narrows to $8bn.
Investors Foot the Bill
Investors eager to back the AI industry’s likely winners have so far underwritten this spending spree. Earlier this year, OpenAI raised $122bn at a $730bn valuation, excluding the fresh capital, and it is now preparing for a listing that could value the company at more than $1tn.
Sharpening Focus
To rein in costs, chief executive Sam Altman last year urged staff to sharpen the company’s consumer chatbot as OpenAI chased a booming market for business AI tools. Shortly afterward, the San Francisco group shelved several of its pricier “side quests,” including the video-generation tool Sora.
The Road to the Public Markets
Momentum toward the public markets is now building. Earlier this month, OpenAI confidentially filed IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Altman has framed the filing as a way to keep the option open, while noting that staying private might still prove the wiser path. Other senior figures and investors, however, expect a flotation as soon as this autumn.
A Race With Anthropic
That timeline sets up a direct race with Anthropic, which also filed paperwork this month after raising $65bn at a $900bn valuation — a figure that now eclipses OpenAI’s own.
OpenAI declined to comment.
