OpenAI’s Change to Profit Focus May Include Sam Altman’s Equity Stake

OpenAI describes its business structure as “a partnership between our original nonprofit and a new limited-profit arm,” which was a contributing factor to last year’s short-lived board coup against CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Elon Musk’s recent lawsuit. But that’s reportedly set to change with a massive recent funding round that’s still being negotiated but could value the ChatGPT creator at more than $150 billion.

Reuters Agency sources said that under the recent structure, OpenAI would operate as a for-profit corporation, similar to rival AI company Anthropic.

That company would “no longer be controlled by a nonprofit board” and would become more attractive to investors, with the nonprofit retaining a minority ownership stake. But for those concerned about OpenAI’s approach to security versus potential profits, this could be concerning as the company pursues AI models capable of reasoning.

When Altman returned to the CEO role last November, he spoke in a letter about “improving our governance structure,” which seems to be taking shape as other executives depart. OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announced her departure today, Reuters Agency notes that CEO Greg Brockman is on leave, and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever left the company earlier this year.

Update, September 25: Information added from Bloomberg.