Opeli announced on Thursday that it reached a non -binding contract with Microsoft, his largest investor, about the changed partnership that would allow the startup to convert a hand focused on profit into a public corporation of benefits (PBC).
The transition, if it is cleaned by regulatory authorities, can allow OpenAI to obtain additional capital from investors and ultimately become a public company.
IN Blog post, The chairman of the OPENAI board, Bret Taylor, said that on the basis of a contract not binding with Microsoft, the non-profit organization OPENAI will continue to exist and maintain control over the activities of the startup. Taylor said that the non -OPENAI -profit organization would have been involved in the PBC worth over $ 100 billion. Further terms of the contract have not been disclosed.
“Microsoft and Openai signed the non -binding memorandum of the arrangements (Mou) for the next phase of our partnership,” the Wspólne companies informed statement. Mous are not legally binding, but they are aimed at documenting the expectations and intentions of each party.
“We are actively working on finalizing the contractual conditions in the final agreement,” added a joint statement.
It seems that development results from the months of negotiations between OpenAI and Microsoft in the scope of transition plans CHATGPT-MAKER. Unlike most startups, OpenAI is controlled by non -profit. The unusual structure allowed members of the Openai board to dismiss the General Director of Altman in 2023. Altman was restored a few days later, and many members of the management board gave up. However, the same management structure remains in place today.
According to their current offer, Microsoft is to obtain the preferred access to OpenAI technology and be the main provider of service in the startup cloud. However, ChatgPT is a much larger business than when Microsoft was invested for the first time in a startup in 2019, and OpenAI apparently tried to relax the control of the cloud supplier as part of these negotiations.
Taylor claims that Opeli and Microsoft “will continue to cooperate with California and Delaware Attorneys General” over the transition plan, which means that the contract still needs stamps of approval by regulatory authorities before they can enter.
Representatives of the lawyer California and Delaware General did not immediately answer Techcrunch for comment.
The voltages between OpenAI and Microsoft over these negotiations have reportedly reached the boiling point in recent months. The Wall Street Journal He informed that Microsoft wanted to control the technology belonging to Windsurf, the start -up of AI coding, which Opeli planned to get at the beginning of this year, while OpenAi fought to maintain the independence of the IP startup. However, the contract collapsed, and the founders of Windsurf were employed by Google, and the rest of his staff was taken over by another startup, Cognition.
In the lawsuit, Elon Musk against OpenAi-which at the root of Altman, Greg Brockman and the company of abandoning non-profit missions-on the start-up profit is also the main point of the flash. Lawyers representing the musk in the lawsuit tried to get information about Microsoft and OpenAI negotiations regarding the transition.
At the beginning of this year, Musk also submitted an unimPlted acquisition offer of $ 97 billion at OpenAi, which the startup management immediately rejected. However, legal experts noticed at the time that Musk’s offer could raise the price of non -profit shares at Openai.
In particular, non -profit in Openai PBC under this contract is greater than what Musk offered.
In recent months, non-profit organizations, such as Encode and The Midas Project, have made a problem with the Openai transition to profit, arguing that it threatens the startup mission to develop Agi, which brings the benefits of humanity. Opeli replied, sending call to some of these groups, The claim that non -profit organizations are financed by its competitors – namely the CEO of Musk and Meta, Mark Zuckerberg. Encode, and the Midas project refuses to claim.