Tempted By Big Profits, OpenAI Wants To Be A For-Profit Company

JAKARTA - OpenAI led by Sam Altman is in the early stages of talks with the California Attorney General's office to transform its corporate structure into a for-profit company. This was reported by Bloomberg News on Monday, December 4 citing two sources familiar with the matter.

Neither OpenAI nor representatives from the California Attorney General have commented on the report.

If this happens, the shift to being a for-profit company will be a significant change in OpenAI's governance structure, which was founded in 2015 as a non-profit AI research laboratory. This step is also predicted to make OpenAI more attractive to investors.

In September, Reuters also reported that OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, is working on a plan to restructure its core business into a for-profit company that will operate as a corporate benefit (benefit corporation), and is no longer being watched by non-profit boards.

Nonetheless, the nonprofit organization OpenAI will still exist and own a small part of the shares in the for-profit company, according to sources reported at the time.

Last month, the ChatGPT maker closed a funding round of US$6.6 billion (Rp104.6 trillion), which could appreciate the company at US$157 billion (Rp2.4 quadrillion), establishing its position as one of the most valuable private companies in the world.