{"id":846130,"date":"2025-05-06T09:11:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T14:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/06\/our-mission-remains-the-same-openai-reverses-course-says-its-nonprofit-will-remain-in-control-of-the-business\/"},"modified":"2025-05-06T09:11:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T14:11:55","slug":"our-mission-remains-the-same-openai-reverses-course-says-its-nonprofit-will-remain-in-control-of-the-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/06\/our-mission-remains-the-same-openai-reverses-course-says-its-nonprofit-will-remain-in-control-of-the-business\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Our Mission Remains the Same&#8217;: OpenAI Reverses Course, Says Its Nonprofit Will Remain in Control of the Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Months after publicly stating its intention to shake up its corporate structure, OpenAI has <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/05\/05\/openai-reverses-course-says-its-nonprofit-will-remain-in-control-of-its-business-operations\/\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">reversed course<\/a> and decided that its nonprofit arm will keep controlling its for-profit business.<\/p>\n<p>According to an <a href=\"https:\/\/openai.com\/index\/evolving-our-structure\/\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">OpenAI blog post<\/a> published Monday, the company&#8217;s board of directors decided that OpenAI will continue to rely on the oversight and control of its nonprofit division moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, and is today overseen and controlled by that nonprofit,&#8221; OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor wrote in the blog post. &#8220;Going forward, it will continue to be overseen and controlled by that nonprofit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The company&#8217;s for-profit LLC, which has lived under the nonprofit since 2019 and will continue doing so, will become a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/wex\/public_benefit_corporation#:~:text=A%20public%20benefit%20corporation%20is%20a%20corporation,operate%20in%20a%20responsible%20and%20sustainable%20manner.&#038;text=A%20public%20benefit%20corporation%20created%20by%20a,subsidized%20services%20or%20benefits%20for%20the%20public.\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">public benefit corporation<\/a> (PBC). A PBC is a for-profit business that must consider the public good in addition to profit in its decisions. The nonprofit division of OpenAI will control and be the biggest shareholder in the PBC.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our mission remains the same,&#8221; Taylor noted. OpenAI&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/openai.com\/about\/\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">mission<\/a> is &#8220;to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>Related: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/openai-would-love-to-buy-google-chrome-browser-chatgpt-exec\/490424\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">Everyone Wants to Buy Google&#8217;s Chrome Browser \u2014 Including OpenAI, According to a Top ChatGPT Executive<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In December, OpenAI <a href=\"https:\/\/openai.com\/index\/why-our-structure-must-evolve-to-advance-our-mission\/\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">publicly indicated<\/a> in a blog post that it was thinking about making its for-profit section a PBC, but one that had complete control over OpenAI&#8217;s operations and business. The non-profit side would not oversee the for-profit, but would instead be in charge of charitable initiatives.<\/p>\n<p>Taylor wrote on Monday that OpenAI chose to reverse course and have the nonprofit retain control over the for-profit business after talking to civic leaders and with the offices of the Attorney General of Delaware and the Attorney General of California.<\/p>\n<p>More than 30 civic leaders, former OpenAI staffers, and Nobel laureates <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/politico-technology-california-decoded-preview\/2025\/04\/23\/fresh-push-tells-bonta-to-stop-openai-deal-00305575\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">delivered letters<\/a> to the offices of the attorneys general last month to ask that they stop OpenAI&#8217;s effort to break from its non-profit governance.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt loading=\"lazy\" role=\"presentation\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.entrepreneur.com\/images\/misc\/1746477962_Sam-Altman-GettyImages-2198353376.jpg?width=1000\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\"><sup><i>OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photographer: Nathan Laine\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/i><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>OpenAI has recently been embroiled in a legal battle with Elon Musk, who helped co-found the company and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.semafor.com\/article\/03\/24\/2023\/the-secret-history-of-elon-musk-sam-altman-and-openai\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">left in early 2018<\/a> following a failed bid to take it over. Musk has since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/elon-musk-files-amended-lawsuit-against-openai-sam-altman\/482994\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">filed lawsuits<\/a> against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, accusing them of breaking OpenAI&#8217;s founding agreement and working to maximize profits for Microsoft instead of humanity as a whole. Microsoft has invested <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2024\/10\/30\/microsoft-cfo-says-openai-investment-will-cut-into-profit-this-quarter.html\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">close to $14 billion<\/a> in OpenAI.<\/p>\n<p>Musk even led an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/tech\/elon-musk-openai-bid-4af12827\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">unsolicited offer<\/a> to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion in February, which Altman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/sam-altman-rejects-elon-musks-974-billion-openai-offer\/486931\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">quickly shot down on X<\/a>. As of press time, Musk had yet to comment.<\/p>\n<p><b>Related: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/openai-is-building-ai-software-engineers\/490081\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">OpenAI Is Creating AI to Do &#8216;All the Things That Software Engineers Hate to Do&#8217;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>OpenAI started as a nonprofit in 2015 and <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2019\/03\/11\/openai-shifts-from-nonprofit-to-capped-profit-to-attract-capital\/\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">transitioned<\/a> to a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/ministrywatch.com\/nonprofits-becoming-for-profits-where-are-the-lines-of-legality\/\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">capped profit<\/a>&#8221; company in 2019, meaning that the company&#8217;s profits were limited to a certain amount, with excess profits given to the nonprofit parent organization. The for-profit arm raised <a href=\"https:\/\/openai.com\/index\/microsoft-invests-in-and-partners-with-openai\/\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">$1 billion<\/a> from Microsoft in 2019, alongside a $100 million initial fundraising round.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2022, OpenAI launched its AI chatbot ChatGPT, which was used by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/saying-thank-you-to-chatgpt-costs-millions-in-electricity\/490341\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">500 million global weekly users<\/a> as of March, up from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/02\/20\/openai-tops-400-million-users-despite-deepseeks-emergence.html\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">400 million<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n<p>OpenAI closed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/chatgpt-maker-openai-closes-record-40b-funding-round\/489372\" rel=\"follow\" target=\"_self\">$40 billion funding round<\/a> in March, the biggest private tech deal ever, which valued the company at $300 billion.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/business-news\/openai-says-it-will-stay-under-nonprofit-control\/491122\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Sherin Shibu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Months after publicly stating its intention to shake up its corporate structure, OpenAI has reversed course and decided that its nonprofit arm will keep controlling its for-profit business. According to an OpenAI blog post published Monday, the company&#8217;s board of directors decided that OpenAI will continue to rely on the oversight and control of its<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":846131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1075,22564],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-846130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mission","8":"category-remains"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}