Meta Secretly Profiting from Llama AI Model Hosting, Court Filing Reveals
2 min read Meta secretly profits from its Llama AI models through revenue-sharing with hosting partners, despite denying it. A court filing reveals Meta earns a cut from companies like AWS and Google Cloud. This contradicts CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s claims that Llama’s value is purely for AI research. March 24, 2025 07:25
Despite Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously stating that “selling access” to its Llama AI models isn’t part of its business model, a newly unredacted court filing reveals that Meta does, in fact, earn revenue from Llama through profit-sharing agreements with hosting partners.
Meta’s Revenue-Sharing Model
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According to the Kadrey v. Meta copyright lawsuit, Meta “shares a percentage of the revenue” that companies generate from hosting Llama models.
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While the filing doesn’t specify which companies pay Meta, Meta has partnered with AWS, Nvidia, Databricks, Groq, Dell, Azure, Google Cloud, and Snowflake to host its models.
Meta’s Monetization Strategy
Meta has hinted at potential monetization strategies in the past:
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Licensing Llama access to cloud providers like Microsoft and Amazon.
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Business messaging services and AI-driven ad integrations.
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Leveraging community-driven improvements to enhance Meta’s own AI models.
While Zuckerberg claims most of Llama’s value comes from AI research contributions, this court revelation suggests Meta is quietly turning its "open" AI models into a revenue stream.
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