Current and former OpenAI employees have become increasingly frustrated that the company has not allowed them to donate their capital to charity for years. OpenAI, however, appears to have finally bowed to the pressure and sent an email from the company’s equity team stating that current and former employees with eligible stock would be able to participate, according to a memo he viewed Edge.
There’s massive money at stake: They can provide workers who have made six-figure equity deals 2019 the chance to donate millions of dollars to charity.
This was reported by a source familiar with the situation Edge that the company is about 18 months behind on its promise, adding that this is particularly concerning because capital donations to charity are something the company has used in the past as a way to attract novel employees – especially as the artificial intelligence talent wars intensify. OpenAI rival Anthropic offers an optional 1:1 match for equity donations of “up to 25% of your equity grant,” according to its careers website.
The second catch: it’s a quick deadline for participants to decide on the donation amount and details, much shorter than the minimum SEC mandate period for other types of liquidation decisions, e.g. 20 working days in the case of a notice. The source said the miniature turnaround time means it is hard for some people to take part in the project, especially since OpenAI’s email strongly recommends that participants make the decision with a tax or financial advisor, and some have fewer units to donate due to a lack of notice and previous plans being put on hold indefinitely. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decision came years later as OpenAI employees grew increasingly concerned about the company’s control over their capital amid rising valuations and a changing corporate structure. In the past, the company undertook approx a restrictive approach that raised red flags for current and former employees — including concerns that OpenAI could do this recover the acquired capital if employees have breached non-disparagement agreements – and this year, employees are increasingly voicing their concerns in Slack threads and all hands meetings that they were unable to make a donation.
Previous rounds of donations occurred in 2021 and 2022, but current and former employees were frustrated by the discrepancy since the last round of donations. Last year, after OpenAI allowed employees to sell approx $1.5 billion worth of stock in the call to SoftBank, employees said expected to be able to donate to charity shortly thereafter, but this has been put on hold indefinitely. Now that OpenAI has completed its mega financing round and completed its for-profit restructuring, the company is reportedly loosening restrictions.
Slow last month, OpenAI announced the finalization of a restructuring it had been negotiating with the attorneys general of California and Delaware for more than a year. The company was established in 2015 as a non-profit research laboratory. One of the most crucial issues remains whether the nonprofit OpenAI will retain control over the technology it builds, particularly the potential development of artificial general intelligence, or AGI – systems that match or exceed human cognitive abilities.
OpenAI’s per-share price has also increased significantly since last month, when current and former employees were able to sell their shares in a tender offer for about $430 each — each share is now worth about $483 at fair market value, according to the source, who added that they believe the edged boost is partly because OpenAI no longer owes its nonprofit as much of its potential future profits as before.