OpenAI’s financials leaked, showing $21 billion in losses

OpenAI’s financials leaked, revealing $21 billion in losses
OpenAI’s financial statements show steepening losses at the company, according to copies obtained by blogger Ed Zitron and the Financial Times. (OpenAI has filed with the SEC for an IPO expected later this year, so the numbers give us a taste of what the S-1 might say). Here’s what the numbers look like:

OpenAI 2025 financials versus 2024

• Revenue: $13.07 billion up from $3.7 billion
• Cost of Revenue: $7.5 billion up from $2.65 billion
• Research and Development: $19.18 billion up from $7.81 billion
• Sales and Marketing: $5.73 billion up from $1.11 billion
• General and Administrative: $1.57 billion up from $907 million
• Total Costs and Expenses: $34 billion up from $12.48 billion
• Loss from Operations: $20.92 billion up from $8.78 billion

Notably, the company’s losses far outstrip its sales. On the bright side, losses as a percentage of sales are in decline. In 2024, the company spent $2.37 to generate every $1 in revenue. In 2025, that ratio declined to $1.60 in expenses for every dollar it took in.

Is there a path to profitability? Maybe. OpenAI’s two biggest expenses are R&D and marketing. Budget cuts there, coupled with an ability to raise prices or win new sources of revenue, could see the company move into the black over time. Cutting R&D would be the most difficult part of that, given that AI companies can only hold onto their customers by generating the best-performing models.

• ‘Fix this code’—the three little words behind the U.S. government decision that shut down Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos AI models - Jeremy Kahn

In small-town Texas, AI data center development pits neighbor against neighbor
Last summer, Infrakey purchased a 520-acre plot of unincorporated land in Texas for a proposed $10-billion AI data center. Ross, with a population of just 200 and no taxing authority, sits next to the site. Lacy Lakeview—seven miles south but with a legal claim on the land—is moving to annex the site to collect $50 million a year in taxes. This has created growing tensions between the neighboring communities over who gets the benefits, who absorbs the consequences, and who ultimately gets a say. Read more:

• When AI Comes to Town: The Data Center Boom - Sharon Goldman
• Two mayors, one $10 billion AI data center, and a growing divide in small-town Texas - Sharon Goldman
• Data center hate is snowballing, and construction setbacks in the first three months of 2026 have already exceeded last year’s, report finds - Sasha Rogelberg
• A ChatGPT prompt almost killed Ryan Serhant’s $50 million NYC penthouse deal. Here’s how he saved it - Sydney Lake

Futures take a breather after global rally in stocks

• S&P 500 futures were flat this morning. The index rose 1.65% yesterday.
• SpaceX rose 19.6%. 
• In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was up 0.58% in early trading and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.56% before lunch.
• Asia: South Korea’s KOSPI was up 2.11%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.13%. India’s Nifty 50 was up 0.51%. China’s CSI 300 was down 0.15%. 
• Brent crude was $81 per barrel this morning, down from $83 the day before.
• Bitcoin was $66.6K.

A market of haves and have-nots: The widest stock split since Covid


The S&P 500 remains near its all-time highs but that is being driven by the overperformance of some stocks compared to the underperformance of the laggards. The gap between the two now approaches levels last seen when the coronavirus pandemic upended the world, Morgan Stanley said in a note.  

“Not only has equity market performance been concentrated in a relatively small share of stocks, but the stocks that are outperforming are doing so by a considerable amount at a time when many names have been more than just left behind. We believe such extreme dispersion sets up ideal circumstances for long/short hedging strategies,” the bank said.

SpaceX: Too big to ignore, maybe too big to handle
“Musk has once again delivered on the hype, and the honeymoon period could well extend to its first set of results. But beyond that the outlook turns trickier—big U.S. IPOs have rarely emerged unscathed from their first year of trading, and plenty of shares are still to be sold. Its size means that it has the potential to drag the rest of the market down with it, spoiling the brewing summer rally now that a US-Iran deal is all but signed."—Chris Beauchamp, Chief Market Analyst, IG.

The new Fortune Southeast Asia 500 is here
The third annual Fortune Southeast Asia 500 captures a regional corporate landscape in transition. The commodity and energy giants that have anchored the ranking since its 2024 debut are slowing, even as they still generate a substantial share of the list’s 2025 revenue and profits. Growth is accelerating, however, among Vietnamese companies, with revenues accounting for roughly one-quarter of the list’s overall increase. Singapore’s leading companies delivered some of the most notable year‑on‑year gains. See the ranking here.

• Vietnam’s economy is one of the fastest-growing in the world. Can it make the leap into the ranks of middle-income countries? - Nicholas Gordon
• The Southeast Asia 500 has a new engine: Vietnam - Andrew Staples

U.S.-Iran peace deal may include $300 billion in funding
President Trump may release the memorandum of understanding before it is formally signed on Friday, the BBC reports. Few of its details have been revealed so far. Vice president J.D. Vance described the document as “very general” and only "about a page and a half" in length.

It includes an agreement that the Strait of Hormuz will re-open on Friday. Shipping companies, however, say they will need solid guarantees that their vessels will be safe before they resume normal operations, the FT reports.

Toll booth: Controversially, the agreement allows Iran to charge “maritime service fees” for ships using the Strait. Trump previously claimed the Strait would be “toll free.” 

It may contain other economic benefits for Iran. “The unfreezing of Iran's assets prior to a deeper discussion may give Congress and the administration second thoughts, especially if the action is not reversible,” Macquarie analysts Thierry Wizman and Gareth Berry said in a note to clients. “An informed source told Fars—Iran's news agency—that ‘in the final moments of the negotiations, the text of the MoU was changed to definitively and explicitly emphasize the issue of Iran-Oman sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, whereby the US will ‘recognize Iran's right to collect fees’. This seems to contradict Trump's claim that the flow will be ‘toll free’.”

• And Israel is concerned that the deal will provide Iran with the resources it needs to rebuild its economy and military capabilities, while not including a guarantee that Iran will never build nuclear weapons, the WSJ says.

The White House is also considering creating a $300 billion investment fund for Iran, the FT reports. Context: That’s three times the size of the $100 billion in Iranian assets that were unfrozen in the Obama Administration’s previous deal with Iran—a payment Trump has repeatedly criticized. On social media, the president said, “Iran has agreed to never have a Nuclear Weapon! Also, the story that the U.S. is paying Iran 300 million Dollars [sic] is Fake News, put out by the Dumocrats!!!”

CEO David Cordani built Cigna into a $275B juggernaut but now wants to be ‘somewhat forgotten’ - Diane Brady

Agentic AI systems are doing more and more work. Now humans need to figure out how to verify it all - Alexei Oreskovic

The Strait of Hormuz is finally reopening, but energy flows may not get back to normal until next year - Jason Ma

Top analyst: 71% of SpaceX’s $2 trillion value rests on AI. Grok’s numbers are ‘almost comical’ by comparison - Mia Osmonbekov

UFC fighters at the White House got paid with Trump family stablecoins—but an ethics expert says a gap in the law allows this - Camila Grigera Naón

AI is taking a greater share of GDP than railroads did in the Panic of 1873 


In the 1870s, the mania for building railroads in the U.S. turned into a bubble, filled with fraudulent companies that took investment with no hope of ever paying it back. When it popped in 1873, the economic downturn was so severe it was referred to at the time as the Great Depression—at least until an even worse recession hit in the late 1920s. As this chart from ARK Invest shows, the proportion of money being sunk into AI today is even greater. 

$1.30 versus $1.60
It has been 10 years since Brexit, and the pound has lost about 18.75% of its value against the dollar. On average, the pound buys $1.30 today. Before Britain left the European Union, it traded at around $1.60, according to George Vessey, Lead FX & Macro Strategist at Convera.

China economy weakens further in May as retail sales post first drop in over three years - CNBC

CIA director doubts Iran's intentions on deal, sources say - Axios

Trump’s Personal Lawyer Was Said to Be Part of a Billionaire’s Criminal Defense - WSJ

Hynix Billionaire Chey, Ex-Wife Fail to Solve Divorce Dispute - Bloomberg

Iran manager calls team World Cup’s ‘most oppressed,’ claims it’s being immediately sent back to Tijuana - NY Post

Private equity bosses warn of AI threat to bets on law and accountancy - FT

Phantom jet fuel crisis never existed, sources say
For months, travellers have worried that flights might be cancelled due to a lack of jet fuel, given that 20% of the world's supply transits through the Strait of Hormuz. At one point, the International Energy Agency said Europe had “maybe six weeks” of supplies left, and commercial airlines cancelled thousands of seats. But two private jet operators have now told Fortune that there never was a shortage of jet fuel. Sure, the price went up, but at no point was fuel close to being unavailable, both said. "We have not seen any shortage of fuel anywhere, whether it's domestic in the United States or for European travel," said Jamie Walker, CEO of Jet Linx, a company that manages private jet fleets, in an interview with Fortune. In reality, the “crisis” was more about commercial airlines trying to cancel unprofitable routes. Read more here.