“Back in November 2025, I reported that OpenAI had made — based on its revenue share with Microsoft — $4.329 billion between January and September 2025, despite The Information reporting that it had made $4.3 billion in the first half of the year based on disclosures to shareholders.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
Based on its Microsoft revenue share, OpenAI made $4.329 billion in January–September 2025.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, AI Is Really Weird, paragraph 108.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment wyea-ai-is-really-weird-36e886-a2
We recorded 42 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2026-04-08. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
Conditions
- based on Microsoft revenue share (qualifier, stated by the speaker)
From the speaker
- OpenAI had made
- based on its revenue share with Microsoft
- $4.329 billion
- between January and September 2025
Our interpretation
- The claim concerns OpenAI's total realized revenue, not merely whether Zitron published this estimate.
- The Microsoft revenue share is an estimation method, not an antecedent that makes this a conditional forecast.
- I interpret the stated precision as USD 4.329 billion rounded to the nearest USD 1 million.
- Gross revenue here means OpenAI's total recognized sales revenue before its payment to Microsoft, rather than the net bilateral settlement.
Counts as supported if: Reliable records establish January–September 2025 realized revenue rounding to USD 4.329 billion, or complete revenue-sharing records validly reproduce that total.
Counts as contradicted if: Comparable records establish a different January–September 2025 total, outside the stated rounding interval.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
TechCrunch reported on November 14, 2025 that, according to a source familiar with the matter, Microsoft's recorded revenue-share payments for January–September 2025 were net of reciprocal payments to OpenAI [e1]. That report casts doubt on converting the recorded payments directly into total OpenAI revenue using the reported 20% share [e1]. It does not supply a verified nine-month revenue total or enough settlement details to determine whether actual revenue rounds to $4.329 billion [e1]. The exact total remains unresolved [e1].
Limitations
- The netting explanation relies on an unnamed source, and the payment amounts reported by TechCrunch originate with Zitron [e1].
- The evidence does not provide complete contract terms, reciprocal payment amounts, or independently verified January–September 2025 revenue [e1].
Evidence (1 item)
Context only: TechCrunch,
Microsoft’s net revenue share
Why it matters here: TechCrunch independently sourced the explanation that reciprocal payments were deducted from Microsoft's recorded share. That undermines treating the settlement as a simple percentage of total OpenAI revenue, but does not itself measure the required revenue total.
- Publisher
- TechCrunch
- Kind of source
- News report
- Measures
- OpenAI and Microsoft, Net bilateral revenue-sharing payments recorded by Microsoft, USD millions, estimate, 2025-01-01 to 2025-09-30
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
Verified OpenAI revenue for January 1–September 30, 2025, precise enough to test rounding to $4.329 billion, or complete settlement records and contract terms that reliably reconstruct that total.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, AI Is Really Weird
Back in November 2025, I reported that OpenAI had made — based on its revenue share with Microsoft — $4.329 billion between January and September 2025, despite The Information reporting that it had made $4.3 billion in the first half of the year based on disclosures to shareholders.
- Where
- paragraph 108
- Published
- 2026-04-08
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-ai-is-really-weird-36e886-a2: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.