Whether on net they turn a profit as company overall is neither here nor there.. My point is that they are selling API tokens at a profit (or if being pedantic, then at a price higher than the cost to serve them ignoring research costs). And that that price is got a healthy margin which they don't charge themselves.

Because of the ongoing training costs. They are certainly making a healthy profit margin on inference.

Neither did Amazon for it's first 25 years ;)