Microsoft’s fiscal fourth-quarter results told a tale of two AI investments. The company recorded a $3.2 billion gain on its stake in Anthropic, a swing that added roughly 33 cents to diluted earnings per share for the quarter alone.
The Anthropic position dates back to a $5 billion investment Microsoft made in November 2025. In just a few quarters, the value of that holding has climbed enough to rival what Microsoft’s far bigger OpenAI stake produced across an entire year.
OpenAI, by contrast, was a softer spot. Microsoft marked down its roughly 27% interest by about $600 million during the same quarter, trimming EPS by around 7 cents. Across the full fiscal year, though, the OpenAI holding still delivered a $5 billion gain and about 67 cents of annual EPS.
Set against Microsoft’s roughly $90 billion in quarterly revenue, the OpenAI write-down is minor. But the contrast is telling: Anthropic’s valuation is on a steepening upward path while OpenAI’s recent momentum has cooled, and Microsoft’s hedged approach of backing both leading labs is starting to show up clearly on its balance sheet.
Source: TechCrunch.
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