OpenAI scraps plan to be for-profit

Move seen as victory for OpenAl's critics

- CADE METZ

OpenAI said Monday that it was restructuring as a public benefit corporation, allowing the nonprofit that controls OpenAI to retain its grip on the company.

The decision is a victory for OpenAI's critics, including one of its founders, Elon Musk, who complained that the company was too focused on profits and had abandoned its early plan to build artificial intelligence systems with safety foremost in mind.

The changes announced on Monday are the latest in years of corporate drama for what many consider to be the most influential AI company in the world. OpenAI's ChatGPT, released in late 2022, was an overnight success that sent the rest of the tech industry scrambling. In just a few years, tech's biggest companies have spent billions on their own AI projects, with hundreds of billions more planned for this decade.