Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit, OpenAI (ChatGPT) is today a capped-for-profit company. Sam Altman, its managing director, could transform it into a company like any other, with the aim of making billions of dollars.
A few days after announcing a historic partnership after Apple, OpenAI could make a major change in the way it operates.
According to The Information, Sam Altman, the boss of the company, would have announced to his shareholders that the parent company of ChatGPT could become a “for-profit” company, which would negate its initial reason for existence. In this configuration, OpenAI would be free to do what it wants with its research, to monetize it even more.
From a non-profit association to a billionaire tech giant?
In 2015, when generative artificial intelligence was far from what it has become today, Elon Musk and Sam Altman founded OpenAI to conduct fundamental AI research. It was a laboratory in the form of a non-profit association, the main mission of which was not to make money, but to study AI.
Between 2018 and 2019, with the progress of its work, OpenAI reached a turning point. Elon Musk dreamed of integrating the company into Tesla (and officially claims to have wanted to protect its non-profit status), Sam Altman wanted to take it to the next level.
In March 2019, OpenAI became a profit-capped company to attract capital, a new status that allowed it to attract giants like Microsoft and launch paid services, like ChatGPT Plus a few years later. It is this change that has earned OpenAI total hatred from Elon Musk, who regularly wages war on it on Twitter.
In 2024, this status would no longer suit Sam Altman. Aware of the incredible potential of the company he leads, the boss of OpenAI sees the qualification “capped profit company” as an obstacle. Its board of directors is putting obstacles in its way (we remember its dismissal at the end of 2023, after a major disagreement), investors are not as numerous as hoped and OpenAI, despite its status as a new must-have in Silicon Valley, could make a lot more money.
Sam Altman’s wish would be to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company, which would allow him to assemble a new board of directors who are friendly to the idea of making money.
OpenAI, a new GAFAM?
Will OpenAI become a tech giant like any other? It’s possible, but nothing has yet been decided depending on The Information. In any case, OpenAI’s mission is today closer to those of Microsoft, Anthropic or xAI (Elon Musk), who also want to monetize artificial intelligence.
The French Mistral and Kyutai, with their open source research, are coming much closer to the historic open vision of OpenAI, which has never been as closed as today. Enough to better understand the divisions between Sam Altman and other OpenAI executives (like Ilya Sutskever), who left the company due to a disagreement in vision.
Subscribe for free to Artificielles, our newsletter on AI, designed by AIs, verified by Numerama!