OpenAI's corporate crises
The recurring collision between OpenAI's nonprofit founding charter and its commercial trajectory — founder exits, the five-day firing of Sam Altman, Musk's suit, and a multi-year restructuring.
OpenAI’s crises all trace to one fault line: a body founded as a nonprofit for humanity’s benefit that became one of the most valuable commercial enterprises on earth. The first fracture was the departure of the researchers who founded Anthropic in 2021 over the direction of the work; Microsoft’s $10 billion then deepened the commercial pull.
The defining episode was governance. In November 2023 the board fired Sam Altman, then reinstated him five days later once employees and Microsoft made the removal untenable — a demonstration that the safety-first structure could not, in the end, act against the company’s momentum. Elon Musk sued over the for-profit turn, and 2024 brought a wave of senior exits, including Mira Murati and two research leaders on a single day, alongside the first reports of a planned for-profit conversion.
The restructuring itself took over a year and several reversals: OpenAI abandoned a plan for full for-profit control, keeping the nonprofit in charge, before completing the restructuring in October 2025. The litigation outlasted it — the Musk trial began and the jury dismissed his claims in 2026 — even as the tension between charter and capital carried into fresh suits.
Microsoft takes an exclusive licence to GPT-3
Microsoft gained access to the underlying model and source code for its own products; the public API, through which OpenAI still served other customers, was unaffected.
Money & business · Labs & people · Models & capabilities
Anthropic is founded by departing OpenAI researchers
The founders, including former OpenAI VPs of research and of safety, said the $124 million round would fund research into steerable, interpretable systems.
Labs & people · Money & business · Safety & alignment
Microsoft invests a reported $10 billion in OpenAI
Microsoft's own announcement gave no figure; press reports put the deal at $10 billion and described Azure becoming OpenAI's exclusive cloud provider.
Money & business · Labs & people
OpenAI commits 20% of its compute to superalignment
The pledge to devote a fifth of secured compute over four years was later disputed by the team's own co-lead, who said requests for GPUs were repeatedly refused.
Safety & alignment
OpenAI's first DevDay ships GPTs and an Assistants API
GPT-4 Turbo cut input pricing to a cent per thousand tokens and extended context to 128,000 tokens; the promised GPT Store did not open until 2024.
Models & capabilities · Money & business
OpenAI's board fires Sam Altman, and reinstates him five days later
The board cited a loss of confidence but gave no detail; around 700 of roughly 770 employees threatened to resign, and the board itself was replaced.
Labs & people · Money & business
Sam Altman returns as CEO with a new initial board
The three-person interim board — Bret Taylor, Larry Summers and Adam D'Angelo, the only holdover from the board that fired him — replaced the four who had voted him out.
Labs & people
Musk sues OpenAI over its for-profit turn
The complaint alleged a founding pact to develop AGI 'for the benefit of humanity' had been broken for Microsoft's profit; OpenAI said no such agreement existed.
Courts & copyright · Labs & people
OpenAI responds to Elon Musk's lawsuit over its founding mission
OpenAI said Musk had contributed $45 million rather than the $1 billion he pledged, and published emails in which he proposed merging OpenAI into Tesla or taking full control.
Courts & copyright · Labs & people
OpenAI board's review concludes, Altman and Brockman to continue leading OpenAI
WilmerHale's inquiry found Altman's November 2023 removal was not about safety, security, finances or statements to investors, and three new directors joined the board.
Labs & people
Jan Leike resigns and the superalignment team dissolves
Leike said his team had been 'sailing against the wind' for compute and access; OpenAI reassigned remaining members rather than replacing the team's leadership.
Labs & people · Safety & alignment · Ideas & essays
OpenAI's exit agreements are found to claw back equity
Vox reported departing staff had to sign lifetime non-disparagement terms within 60 days or lose vested equity potentially worth millions; Altman said he had not known.
Labs & people · Culture & impact
Helen Toner gives first detailed public account of the OpenAI board's decision to fire Altman
Toner said the board first learned of ChatGPT's launch from Twitter and that Altman tried to have her removed after she co-wrote a critical paper.
Labs & people
OpenAI's board forms a Safety and Security Committee
Chaired by board chair Bret Taylor and including CEO Sam Altman as a member, the committee had 90 days to review safety practices before recommending changes to the full board.
Safety & alignment · Labs & people
Current and former staff demand a right to warn
Thirteen current and former employees of OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic signed; Bengio, Hinton and Russell endorsed it without being employees themselves.
Ideas & essays · Safety & alignment · Labs & people
Mira Murati and two research leaders quit OpenAI on the same day
Murati cited wanting time for her own exploration; she went on to found Thinking Machines Lab, and Altman called the departures independent and amicable.
Labs & people
Reuters reports OpenAI plans to convert to a for-profit structure
Report says Altman would receive a stake for the first time and the nonprofit board would lose its controlling role, a plan not finalised until late 2025.
Labs & people · Money & business
OpenAI raises $6.6 billion at a $157 billion valuation
Investors could claw back their money if OpenAI failed to convert to a for-profit structure within two years, and were reportedly asked not to fund Anthropic or xAI.
Money & business · Labs & people
OpenAI publishes internal emails on Elon Musk's early push for a for-profit structure
The post answered a preliminary-injunction motion Musk's lawyers had filed weeks earlier seeking to block OpenAI's conversion to a for-profit company.
Courts & copyright · Labs & people
OpenAI proposes converting its for-profit arm into a Public Benefit Corporation
OpenAI laid out plans to restructure its capped-profit LLC into a public benefit corporation, with the nonprofit retaining oversight.
Labs & people · Money & business
Judge denies Musk's bid to block OpenAI's for-profit conversion
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers called the underlying charitable-trust question a 'toss-up' but offered an expedited trial for the autumn given the public interest at stake.
Courts & copyright
SoftBank leads a $40 billion round at a $300 billion valuation
The largest private funding round ever recorded, tied to OpenAI completing its corporate restructuring by year end.
Money & business · Labs & people
OpenAI countersues Musk, alleging harassment campaign
OpenAI called Musk's $97.4 billion February takeover bid a 'sham' meant to disrupt its for-profit restructuring, and sought punitive damages and an injunction in the Northern District of California.
Courts & copyright
OpenAI abandons plan to convert to full for-profit control, nonprofit to keep control
The for-profit arm still becomes a public benefit corporation, but after talks with California and Delaware's attorneys general the nonprofit keeps its controlling stake.
Labs & people · Money & business
Tech Oversight Project and Midas Project publish 'The OpenAI Files' governance report
Drawing on over 200 sources including former employees, the report accused Altman of self-dealing and objected to plans that would loosen the nonprofit board's control.
Labs & people
Nonprofit Commission publishes its report to OpenAI's board
The advisory panel, drawn from outside OpenAI and deliberately kept apart from Sam Altman, said AI was 'too consequential' to be governed by a corporation alone.
Labs & people
OpenAI and Microsoft issue joint statement on renegotiated partnership
The non-binding memorandum cleared OpenAI to convert into a public-benefit corporation while extending Microsoft's IP and Azure exclusivity to 2032, even past an AGI declaration.
Labs & people · Money & business
OpenAI announces its nonprofit will control a new public benefit corporation with a $100bn+ stake
The announcement paired continued nonprofit control with a new memorandum of understanding on commercial terms with Microsoft, both still to be finalised.
Labs & people · Money & business
OpenAI completes its restructuring
The non-profit, renamed the OpenAI Foundation, kept control and about 26% of a new public-benefit corporation; Microsoft's stake was put at roughly 27%.
Labs & people · Money & business
Ilya Sutskever's deposition reveals details of the 2023 OpenAI board conflict
Sutskever testified that most of the allegations behind his 52-page memo against Altman came secondhand from Mira Murati and were never independently verified.
Labs & people
Unsealed filing details OpenAI's account of the Musk restructuring dispute
The filing said Musk had sought majority equity control and roughly $80bn for a self-sustaining Mars city; Altman posted the claim publicly on X the same day.
Courts & copyright · Labs & people
OpenAI retires GPT-4o and other older models from ChatGPT
OpenAI said only about 0.1% of ChatGPT users still chose GPT-4o daily, more than a year after briefly restoring it to Plus users following the GPT-5 rollout backlash.
Models & capabilities
Musk drops most claims against OpenAI and Altman ahead of trial
Musk narrowed his suit from 26 claims to two — unjust enrichment and breach of charitable trust — after Judge Gonzalez Rogers granted his request to streamline the case.
Courts & copyright
Musk v Altman/OpenAI trial begins
Musk sought as much as $134bn in damages to be paid to OpenAI's charity, plus Altman's removal from the board, in a case tried before a nine-member advisory jury in Oakland.
Courts & copyright · Money & business · Labs & people
Jury dismisses Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman
The jury took under two hours to decide Musk's claims fell outside a three-year statute of limitations, without ruling on whether the alleged breach of trust actually occurred.
Courts & copyright · Labs & people
Florida sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over ChatGPT safety practices
The 83-page complaint names Altman personally, brings ten counts including product liability and public nuisance, and follows a criminal probe into a fatal FSU campus shooting.
Courts & copyright · Safety & alignment