en.Wedoany.com Reported - Michael Wetter, a senior executive at Microsoft Corp. responsible for deal-making, testified on May 11 local time in federal court in Oakland, California, that Microsoft has invested more than $100 billion in its partnership with OpenAI. This figure encompasses Microsoft's initial investment in OpenAI, as well as the costs incurred for building infrastructure and providing computing hosting services for OpenAI, accumulated through the current fiscal year (ending in June).
Wetter noted in his court testimony that many of these costs were incurred before any revenue was generated. He stated clearly in court: "We need to pre-build the Azure infrastructure before providing services to OpenAI." Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing division, and since the two parties signed an exclusive cloud collaboration agreement in 2019, Microsoft has continuously invested resources in building the computing backbone network for OpenAI. Wetter also disclosed that as of March 2025, Microsoft's revenue from the OpenAI partnership was approaching $9.5 billion.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified in the same court last week that Microsoft set a $92 billion return target from its early, large-scale investment in OpenAI. Nadella said these investments "worked out well because we took the risk." In 2019, Microsoft made its first $1 billion investment in OpenAI. By early 2023, Microsoft had cumulatively invested approximately $13 billion in OpenAI and has remained its primary cloud infrastructure provider. By the end of March 2026, OpenAI's valuation had soared to $852 billion.
In terms of revenue, Microsoft has gained strong commercial returns through the deep integration of OpenAI's technology. Data shows that Microsoft generated approximately $30 billion in related revenue between 2023 and 2025, with most of the gains stemming from OpenAI's massive infrastructure needs. During this period, OpenAI paid Microsoft about $23 billion for renting Azure servers. Additionally, Microsoft's sales of AI-related products such as Office 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot contributed the second-highest share of related revenue.
The partnership model between the two parties has undergone significant adjustments since April 2026. Microsoft relinquished its exclusive rights to sell OpenAI's GPT models, and the two sides agreed to cap the total revenue-sharing payments at $38 billion, with the agreement lasting until 2030. Under OpenAI's original agreement, it was required to share 20% of its revenue with Microsoft, a total that could have reached $135 billion if long-term revenue targets were met. The implementation of the new agreement allows OpenAI to save approximately $97 billion in expenditures. Furthermore, OpenAI committed to purchasing $250 billion in Azure cloud services from Microsoft, while Microsoft secured the right to continue reselling OpenAI's technology until 2032.
Wetter made the above testimony in the lawsuit filed by Elon Musk against OpenAI and Microsoft. In 2024, Musk accused OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman of betraying the company's founding mission as a non-profit organization by operating as a for-profit entity, and alleged that Microsoft assisted in this action. OpenAI, Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft have all denied any wrongdoing, calling Musk's allegations baseless harassment intended to generate publicity for his own AI startup, xAI.
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