When Microsoft reported killer fourth-quarter earnings for its fiscal 2026 yr (which ended June 30), it tucked in an attention-grabbing little tidbit about how its investments within the two largest, and competing, AI labs are doing.
For the quarter, it recorded its funding in Anthropic as a $3.2 billion gain, boosting diluted earnings [er share by 33 cents. (Microsoft reported diluted earnings per share of $4.81 for the quarter). Microsoft invested $5 billion in Anthropic in November 2025 as a part of a round settlement underneath which the AI lab additionally agreed to purchase $30 billion value of Azure companies.
Microsoft doesn’t routinely replace the worth of its Anthropic funding every quarter. It does, nonetheless, talk about its OpenAI funding quarterly. Microsoft mentioned funding didn’t fare practically as properly within the quarter, and marked it down about $600 million, lowering diluted EPS by about 7 cents per share.
Microsoft owns about 27% of OpenAI. And whereas Microsoft additionally receives revenue-share funds, it doesn’t report how a lot OpenAI pays underneath that association. As an alternative, Microsoft accounts for the worth of its funding. Whereas this quarter introduced a fairly sizable decline within the worth of that funding, the $600 million write-down was nonetheless principally a rounding error for Microsoft. The corporate delivered a extremely worthwhile quarter, reporting $90 billion of income and web earnings of $35.8 billion for the quarter. Microsoft’s income was $331.8 billion with a web earnings of $133.7 billion for the yr.
Microsoft’s OpenAI funding appears significantly better when seen on a full-year foundation.
For the yr, Microsoft’s OpenAI funding generated a $5 billion achieve and added $0.67 on EPS, respectively, the company reported. (Microsoft reported $17.95 EPS for its fiscal yr.) Nonetheless, it’s noteworthy that Microsoft reported practically as a lot of a achieve on Anthropic in a single quarter because it did for the yr on OpenAI for your entire yr. In actual fact, it’s so noteworthy that Microsoft disclosed it.
