Back in December, OpenAI announced that it will be letting the for-profit division of the company become a Public Benefit Corporation, essentially turning the company for-profit. While that is still on track to happen, The company now says that it, as a whole, will remain a non-profit, with the non-profit half being a large shareholder in the PBC and having control of it.
“OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, and is today overseen and controlled by that nonprofit. Going forward, it will continue to be overseen and controlled by that nonprofit”, the company said in its announcement. The decision to remain one was made after “hearing from civic leaders and engaging in constructive dialogue with the offices of the Attorney General of Delaware and the Attorney General of California”.
Unfortunately, the reversed course did not sway co-founder-turned-antagonist Elon Musk. The billionaire had previously sued OpenAI and dropped the suit before filing a new one again. Reuters reports that Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, had said that he plans to proceed with the latest lawsuit against the company he co-founded.
Not too long after OpenAI first announced shifting control to the for-profit arm, Musk offered to buy the non-profit portion for US$97.4 billion (~RM412.59 billion). At the time, Musk, through Toberoff, said that “it’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was”.
