Parmy Olson, Columnist

OpenAI’s $100 Billion Pivot Blurs Its ‘Mission’ Further

Would a nonprofit bankrolled by the AI company’s profits put humanity’s interests first?

September 12, 2025 at 4:04 PM UTC

Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, she is author of “Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World.”

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Months of protracted negotiations between OpenAI and Microsoft Corp. have finally led to… an agreement about an agreement that will help the AI upstart carve a path towards greater independence.

“We are actively working to finalize contractual terms,” OpenAI said Thursday night, referring to a sweeping plan to restructure its powerful nonprofit arm. Remember the one that fired Chief Executive Sam Altman back in November 2023, and gave Microsoft executives a collective heart attack? It’s being given an equity stake worth over $100 billion that will redraw the company’s future.