Ex-OpenAI staffers back Musk to fight for-profit shift

When OpenAI tried to convince top researchers not to defect to Google or Anthropic back in the day, its trump card was always simple: we are a nonprofit, and we prioritize humanity over profit. Now, that very argument is returning to haunt Sam Altman.

On Friday, a group of 12 former OpenAI employees filed a proposed amicus brief supporting Elon Musk in his ongoing legal battle to halt OpenAI’s corporate restructuring. The brief, filed by Harvard law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, urges the court to block the startup from transitioning into a fully for-profit corporation.

Altman's old promises come back to court

The list of signatories features several prominent research and policy alumni, including Daniel Kokotajlo, William Saunders, and Gretchen Krueger, who have previously raised alarms about OpenAI’s breakneck race for AI dominance.

According to the filing, abandoning nonprofit oversight fundamentally violates OpenAI’s charter and betrays the trust of early workers and donors. The brief reveals that leadership frequently wielded the company's unique capped-profit structure as a recruiting weapon to woo skeptical engineers.

In fact, the brief highlights an all-hands meeting in late 2020 where CEO Sam Altman allegedly told staff that nonprofit governance was paramount to guarantee that safety outweighed short-term financial gains. That reassurance was routinely used to keep employees from taking competing offers.

The former staffers warn that a for-profit pivot creates dangerous incentives to cut corners on safety and concentrate immense power among private shareholders. They also argue that a commercial entity would likely ditch the charter’s "merge and assist" clause, which requires OpenAI to halt its own work and assist any safety-aligned competitor that reaches AGI first.

OpenAI promises the world's richest nonprofit

OpenAI is pushing back aggressively against the revolt. A spokesperson told TechCrunch that the nonprofit isn't going anywhere and that the restructuring merely converts its commercial arm into a Public Benefit Corporation, matching the exact governance used by rivals like Anthropic and Musk’s own xAI.

On social media, the company claimed it is preparing to build the best-equipped nonprofit in history. Reports suggest the nonprofit entity will exchange its controlling stake for billions of dollars in equity, which OpenAI says will fund charitable work across healthcare, education, and science.

Yet the pressure is mounting from all sides. Earlier in the week, labor groups like the California Teamsters petitioned California Attorney General Rob Bonta to block the transition, accusing OpenAI of squandering charitable assets. Meanwhile, OpenAI faces a ticking clock: reports indicate it must finalize the corporate shift soon, or risk forfeiting capital secured in its recent funding rounds.

Why it matters

For engineers and researchers choosing where to build the future of AI, this revolt shatters the remaining illusion of Silicon Valley's corporate altruism. The ideal of an untainted, mission-first research lab that can resist the pressure of venture returns has collapsed into a standard corporate structure.

In our view, these former staffers present a far deadlier threat to OpenAI’s plans than Musk’s fiery rhetoric alone. When early architects testify under oath that nonprofit control was the explicit condition of their employment, regulators and a 2026 jury will have hard evidence that charitable assets and human trust were systematically leveraged to bootstrap a commercial empire.

It looks like OpenAI is attempting a clever financial maneuver by swapping governance control for a massive charitable war chest. But promising billions for healthcare doesn't change the central fact: the board will no longer hold the ultimate emergency brake on the frontier models it unleashes.