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When ChatGPT maker OpenAI restructured into a for-profit company, it removed all safety language from its mission statement. With investors now on the board who directly receive a share of OpenAi\u2019s profits, the change is prompting concerns the company would deemphasize safety as it seeks to increase the bottom line.<\/p>\n
\u201cOpenAI\u2019s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity,\u201d reads the company\u2019s new mission statement, according to OpenAI\u2019s latest IRS disclosure form, removing the word \u201csafely\u201d that was found in every IRS filing previously.<\/p>\n
OpenAI\u2019s latest IRS disclosure form 990, the Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax, marked the last time the company claimed tax-exempt status as a not-for-profit company. The form, released in November 2025 and covering the financial year 2024, reveals the company\u2019s latest mission statement change as it ceded almost three-quarters of nonprofit control to private investors and employees.<\/p>\n
Removing the safety language sparks concerns for some nonprofit accountability scholars like Alnoor Ebrahim, who first noticed the change and warned of a potential ominous future ahead for a company marred by growing safety concerns.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n OpenAI and the company\u2019s CEO, Sam Altman, were named as defendants in several lawsuits that allege negligence, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, wrongful death, and other product liability claims.<\/p>\n For Ebrahim, a professor at Tufts University\u2019s Fletcher School, the mission statement change is evidence of the company choosing to forgo safety to increase the bottom line.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe OpenAI\u2019s makeover is a test case for how we, as a society, oversee the work of organizations that have the potential to both provide enormous benefits and do catastrophic harm,\u201d wrote Ebrahim.\u00a0<\/p>\n Unlike other big tech companies, OpenAI began as a nonprofit with a for-profit subsidiary overseen by a nonprofit board of directors. However, in late 2024, OpenAI announced it received $6.6 billion in new funding from investors.\u00a0<\/p>\n The funding came with a catch: It would turn into debt unless OpenAI restructured into a more traditional for-profit tech company to be managed by investors, who could own shares without caps on profits.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn my view, these changes explicitly signal that OpenAI is making its profits a higher priority than the safety of its products,\u201d Ebrahim opined.<\/p>\n In contrast to private companies, the board members of tax-exempt charitable nonprofits cannot take a share of earnings. The rules get hairier regarding what investors can do when a nonprofit owns a for-profit business, such as in OpenAI\u2019s case. Investors can enrich themselves from the profits, but are usually unable to sit on the board or elect board members because of a conflict of interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n The nonprofit OpenAI Foundation ceded 74% control in the company\u2019s recent restructuring, controlling only a 26% stake in the OpenAI Group. Thanks to a $13.8 billion investment, Microsoft now owns 27% of the company stock, with OpenAI\u2019s employees and other investors owning the rest.<\/p>\n OpenAI has completed Form 990 nine times since its founding originally as a nonprofit scientific research lab in 2015. In the nine years of filings, the company changed its mission statement six times, finally removing all references to safety in the 2025 form. OpenAI addressed the changes to the mission statement when it announced the restructuring.<\/p>\n \u201cWe rephrased our mission to \u2018ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity\u2019 and planned to achieve it \u2018primarily by attempting to build safe AGI and share the benefits with the world.\u2019 The words and approach changed to serve the same goal\u2014benefiting humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n OpenAI still uses safety language when discussing its mission online. \u201cWe view this mission as the most important challenge of our time. It requires simultaneously advancing AI\u2019s capability, safety, and positive impact in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Ebrahim notes the language does little to help his concerns. \u201cGiven that neither the mission of the foundation nor of the OpenAI group explicitly alludes to safety, it will be hard to hold their boards accountable for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortune <\/em>reviewed each of OpenAI\u2019s filings, and here\u2019s how the mission changed throughout the years:\u00a0<\/p>\n 2016 and 2017: 2018 and 2019: 2020: 2021: 2022 and 2023: 2024: #OpenAI #changed #mission #statement #times #years #removing #safely #benefits #humanity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When ChatGPT maker OpenAI rest… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[1927,5021,14213,13993,703,14211,14212,214,2787,5370,389,84],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24556"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Profits over safety<\/strong><\/h2>\n
How OpenAI\u2019s mission statements changed over time<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u201cOpenAI\u2019s goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. We think that artificial intelligence technology will help shape the 21st century, and we want to help the world build safe AI technology and ensure that AI\u2019s benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible. We\u2019re trying to build AI as part of a larger community, and we want to openly share our plans and capabilities along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOpenAI\u2019s goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. We think that artificial intelligence technology will help shape the 21st century, and we want to help the world build safe AI technology and ensure that AI\u2019s benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible.\u201d We\u2019re trying to build AI as part of a larger community, and we want to openly share our plans and capabilities along the way.<\/s><\/p>\n
\u201cOpenAI\u2019s goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity, as a whole,<\/s> unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. We think<\/s>OpenAI believes<\/mark> that artificial intelligence technology will help shape the 21st century,<\/s> and we<\/s> want to help the world build safe AI technology and ensure that AI\u2019s benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOpenAI\u2019s goal<\/s> mission<\/mark> is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit<\/s> build general-purpose artificial intelligence that benefits<\/mark> humanity, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. OpenAI believes that artificial intelligence technology will help shape the 21st century and want to help the world build<\/s> has the potential to have a profound, positive impact on the world, so the company\u2019s goal is to develop and responsibly deploy<\/mark> safe AI technology and ensure that AI\u2019s benefits are<\/s>, ensuring that its benefits are<\/mark> as widely and evenly distributed as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOpenAI\u2019s mission is to build general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI)<\/mark> that safely<\/mark> benefits humanity, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. OpenAI believes that artificial intelligence technology has the potential to have a profound, positive impact on the world, so the companys<\/s> our<\/mark> goal is to develop and responsibly deploy safe AI technology, ensuring that its benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOpenAI\u2019s mission is to build general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) that safely benefits humanity, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. OpenAI believes that artificial intelligence technology has the potential to have a profound, positive impact on the world, so our goal is to develop and responsibly deploy safe AI technology, ensuring that its benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible<\/s> ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.<\/mark>\u201c<\/p>\n<\/div>\n