OpenAI reaches new agreement with Microsoft to change its corporate
structure
[September 13, 2025] By
THALIA BEATY and MATT O'BRIEN
OpenAI has reached a new tentative agreement with Microsoft and said its
nonprofit, which technically controls its business, will now be given a
$100 billion equity stake in its for-profit corporation.
The maker of ChatGPT said it had reached a new nonbinding agreement with
Microsoft, its longtime partner, “for the next phase of our
partnership.”
The announcements on Thursday include a few details about these new
arrangements. OpenAI's proposed changes to its corporate structure have
drawn the scrutiny of regulators, competitors and advocates concerned
about the impacts of artificial intelligence.
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in 2015 and its nonprofit board has
continued to control the for-profit subsidiary that now develops and
sells its AI products. It’s not clear whether the $100 billion equity
stake the nonprofit will get as part of this announcement represents a
controlling stake in the business.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said last week that his office was
investigating OpenAI's proposed restructuring of its finances and
governance. His office said they could not comment on the new
announcements but said they are “committed to protecting charitable
assets for their intended purpose.”
Bonta and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings also sent the company
a letter expressing concerns about the safety of ChatGPT after meeting
with OpenAI’s legal team earlier last week in Delaware, where OpenAI is
incorporated.
“Together, we are particularly concerned with ensuring that the stated
safety mission of OpenAI as a non-profit remains front and center,”
Bonta said in a statement last week.
[to top of second column] |
 Microsoft invested its first $1
billion in OpenAI in 2019 and the two companies later formed an
agreement that made Microsoft the exclusive provider of the
computing power needed to build OpenAI's technology. In turn,
Microsoft heavily used the technology behind ChatGPT to enhance its
own AI products.
The two companies announced on Jan. 21 that they
were altering that agreement, enabling the smaller company to build
its own computing capacity, “primarily for research and training of
models.” That coincided with OpenAI's announcements of a partnership
with Oracle to build a massive new data center in Abilene, Texas.
But other parts of its agreements with Microsoft remained up in the
air as the two companies appeared to veer further apart. Their
Thursday joint statement said they were still “actively working to
finalize contractual terms in a definitive agreement.” Both
companies declined further comment.
OpenAI had given its nonprofit board of directors — whose members
now include a former U.S. Treasury secretary — the responsibility of
deciding when its AI systems have reached the point at which they
“outperform humans at most economically valuable work,” a concept
known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI.
Such an achievement, per its earlier agreements, would cut off
Microsoft from the rights to commercialize such a system, since the
terms “only apply to pre-AGI technology.”
OpenAI’s corporate structure and nonprofit mission are also the
subject of a lawsuit brought by Elon Musk, who helped found the
nonprofit research lab and provided initial funding. Musk’s suit
seeks to stop OpenAI from taking control of the company away from
its nonprofit and alleges it has betrayed its promise to develop AI
for the benefit of humanity.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
