Small nitpick: the models probably make some money on actual inference. Might not be a massive amount, but hard to see them not having a positive contribution m

Small nitpick: the models probably make some money on actual inference. Might not be a massive amount, but hard to see them not having a positive contribution margin purely on inference. What's losing OpenAI money is paying for the whole of R&D, including training and staff. Microsoft doesn't pay that, so they get the money making part of AI without the associated costs.