OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has secured a $1 billion investment from Disney, a move that highlights the company’s precarious financial position rather than a strategic win. The timing is striking: Disney simultaneously sued Google over intellectual property rights while licensing its assets to OpenAI’s video generator, Sora – a clear signal of where Disney’s loyalties lie in the escalating AI competition.
However, the deal barely scratches the surface of OpenAI’s spending. With estimated losses in the billions, the $1 billion infusion covers just weeks of expenditure. Deutsche Bank analysts project staggering losses of $140 billion between 2024 and 2029, while OpenAI’s infrastructure commitments already exceed $1 trillion. This means OpenAI needs over a thousand more Disney-sized deals to stay afloat, a reality that underscores its unsustainable burn rate.
The arrangement is far from mutual benefit. Disney gains a stake in OpenAI, a foothold in the AI landscape, and a pipeline of user-generated content for Disney+. OpenAI, meanwhile, pays for access to Disney’s intellectual property – a dependency that further drains its resources. The company’s financial instability is so severe that some analysts compare it to Netscape, a once-dominant pioneer that was eventually overshadowed by larger tech giants and acquired by AOL.
OpenAI’s revenue in the first half of 2025 was $4.3 billion, yet expenditure reached $17.8 billion. No startup has ever operated at this scale of loss. OpenAI may be relying on bailouts from major investors like Softbank, Microsoft, or even the U.S. government to survive. If valuations plummet, a fate similar to Netscape’s could await OpenAI, with a larger entity acquiring it rather than allowing it to collapse.
The Disney deal isn’t a rescue; it’s a desperate attempt to buy time. OpenAI’s future hinges on securing even more such partnerships, or facing a potential collapse as its spending outpaces revenue by an unsustainable margin.
