OpenAI abandons plan to be controlled by for-profit board

OpenAI has been working for months to no longer be controlled by a nonprofit. It’s now giving up.

In a company blog post published on Monday, nonprofit board chairman Bret Taylor said that OpenAI is abandoning its plan to become controlled by a for-profit 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.” Both attorneys general have oversight of OpenAI and could have blocked its planned restructuring, which companies like Meta protested.

Now, OpenAI’s nonprofit parent company (the same one that briefly fired CEO Sam Altman) will continue to oversee its for-profit subsidiary, which is being changed to a public benefit corporation. In a memo to OpenAI employees, CEO Sam Altman said the current for-profit structure, which capped returns investors could receive after AGI is declared, “made sense when it looked like there might be one dominant AGI effort but doesn’t in a world of many great AGI companies.”

This story is developing…