Ex-OpenAI staffers file amicus brief opposing the company’s for-profit transition

A group of former open employees on Friday has a Proposed amicus command To support Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAi, opposed the planned conversion of OpenAi from a non-profit to a company with profit.

The short names twelve former OpenAi employees: Steven Adler, Rosemary Campbell, Neil Chowdhury, Jacob Hilton, Daniel Kokotajlo, Gretchen Krueger, Todor Markov, Richard Ngo, Girish Sastry, William Saunders, Carrol Wainwright and Jeffreight. It claims that, if OpenAI’s non-profit, control over the business activities of the organization would “fundamentally violate his mission”.

Various ex-Staffers have previously spoken against the practices of OpenAi earlier. Cruiser the company has summoned To improve his accountability and transparency, while Kokotajlo and Saunders previously warned that OpenAi in a “Recruitless” Race for AI -Dominance. Wainwright said that openi ‘shouldn’t be that [be trusted] When it promises to do the right one later. ‘

In a statement, a openi spokesperson said that the non -profit of OpenAi “is not going anywhere” and that the mission of the organization “will remain the same.”

“Our board has been very clear,” the spokesperson told WAN via e -mail. “We are turning our existing for-profit arm into a public of public benefits (PBC)-the same structure as other AI laboratories such as anthropic and some of these former employees now work and [Musk’s AI startup] Xai. “

OpenAi was founded as a non-profit in 2015, but it converted into a “DOP profit” in 2019 and is now trying to restructure again in a PBC. When it switched to a DOP profit, OpenAi retained its non-profit wing, which currently has a controlling interest in the company’s arms of business of the organization.

Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAi accuses the start-up of his non-profit mission, which was aimed at ensuring that the AI ​​examination benefits all humanity. Musk had sought a provisional order to stop the conversion of OpenAi. A federal judge refused the request, but the case allowed to go to a jury court in the spring of 2026.

According to the assignment of the former opaai employees, the current structure of OpenAI-a non-profit organization that checks a group of other subsidiaries is “crucial part” of its general strategy and “critical” for the organization’s mission. Restructuring that removes the controlling role of the non -profit would not only contradict the mission and charter obligations of OpenAi, but also “the trust of employees, donors and other stakeholders who have joined and supported these obligations on the basis of these obligations,” claims the assignment.

“OpenAi dedicated to various important principles for carrying out [its] Mission in their charter document, “De Korte reads:” These obligations were taken very seriously within the company and were repeatedly communicated and treated internally as binding. The court must acknowledge that maintaining the non -profit board is essential to maintain the unique structure of OpenAi, which is designed to ensure that artificial general information benefits humanity instead of serving limited financial interests. ”

Artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is broadly interpreted as AI who can complete any task that a person can complete.

According to the assignment, OpenAi often used its structure as a recruitment instrument – and repeatedly ensured that the non -profit control was ‘critical’ in carrying out his mission. The assignment tells about an OpenAI all-hand meeting at the end of 2020, in which Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, reportedly emphasized that the board and supervision of the non-profit organizations “were of the greatest interest” in “guaranteeing that safety and broad social benefits were prioritized over financial profit in the short term.”

“When recruiting conversations with candidates, it was common to mention the unique board structure of OpenAi as a critical distinguishing factor between OpenAI and competitors such as Google or Anthropic and an important reason that they should consider coming to the company,” reads the assignment. “This same reason was also often used to convince employees who are considering leaving for competitors to stay in OpenAI – including some of us.”

The short warnings that should be allowed to convert to a profit motive, it can be stimulated to “potential [cut] Corners’ on safety and develop powerful AI ‘concentrated among its shareholders’. A profit motive OpenAi would have little reason to adhere to the ‘Merge and help’ clause in the current Charter of OpenAI, which promises that OpenAi will stop competing with and each ‘allocated, safety -conscious’ project will help AGI reach before Agi is achieved before it does, claims the assignment.

The former Opendai employees, some of whom were research and policy leaders at the company, join a growing cohort that expressed a strong opposition against the transition from OpenAi.

Earlier this week, a group of organizations, including non-profit organizations and labor groups such as the California teamsters, submitted a petition in California attorney-general Rob Bonta to prevent OpenAI from becoming a profit motive. They claimed that the company ‘has not protected its charity assets’ and is actively’ undermining its charity mission to promote safe artificial intelligence. “

Encode, a non-profit organization that partly sponsored the fatal SB 1047 AI security legislation of California, mentioned similar concerns in an Amicus letter in December.

OpenAI has said that his conversion would retain his non-profit arm and have it infused with resources that must be spent on ‘charity initiatives’ in sectors such as health care, education and science. In exchange for his controlling interest in the OpenAi company, the non -profit is said to be harvested to dollars.

“We are actually getting ready to build the best-equipped non-profit organization that the world has ever seen-we don’t convert it,” the company wrote in a series of messages on X On Wednesday.

The deployment is high for OpenAi, which must be at the end of this year or next to complete the conversion with profit motive or to have the risk of having to abandon part of the capital that it has put forward in recent months, according to various reports.