After Years of Chasing Money, OpenAI Reportedly Giving Up on Being a “Nonprofit”

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ChatGPT maker OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit, only to change its mind four years later, announcing that it had become a "capped-profit" company.

Billions of dollars worth of investment rounds later, the Financial Times is now reporting that the company is finally looking to shed its nonprofit status once and for all.

The company is reportedly in talks to raise further new funds, giving it a valuation of north of $100 billion and potentially making it one of the most valuable Silicon Valley firms ever.

OpenAI has since denied the reporting, arguing in a statement to the FT that "the nonprofit is core to our mission and will continue to exist."

"We remain focused on building AI that benefits everyone and as we’ve previously shared we’re working with our board to ensure that we’re best positioned to succeed in our mission," the statement reads.

No Cap

OpenAI founder and multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk, who rage quit the firm in 2019, has long accused it of turning a blind eye to its nonprofit origins.

Last month Musk even sued OpenAI, arguing that it had abandoned its mission to "benefit humanity" by signing a $10 billion deal with tech giant Microsoft (a previous and largely identical lawsuit filed by Musk was mysteriously abandoned in June.)

"Either turning a nonprofit into a for-profit is legal and everyone should be doing it or it’s illegal and OpenAI is a house of cards," Musk tweeted last week.

Ironically, emails published by OpenAI at the time of Musk's first lawsuit showed that he had been the one pushing OpenAI to become a for-profit entity, suggesting he was simply sour for having abandoned a massively profitable AI venture years too early.

According to the FT's latest report, OpenAI has yet to make a final decision. One option is to remove existing caps on profits for investors, which would be a nail in the coffin for its nonprofit past.

None of this should be particularly surprising at this point, considering the Sam Altman-led entity has quickly turned into one of the most hyper-capitalist ventures in recent history.

Besides, its existing "capped profit" structure clearly hasn't stopped it from raising ungodly amounts of cash — and any public benefit to the project remains elusive.

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