Sounds like OpenAI are in the token-maxxing camp, so who knows what individual employees are doing to work their way up the leaderboard?
If you spend $8000 to generate an animated pelican riding a bike, then how much tracking does it really need?
Is the guy who spent $300,000 or so translating the FLT proof to Lean going to get a big Christmas bonus?
End of day, output and results are top target of measurements, token consumption is the obvious number that they would like to disclose for their own business benefits and a simple metrics that correlate with the output.
Rest assured, capitalist appears irrational in wasting money, but they certainly care more about profit.