OpenAI Completed Its Conversion. A New Ballot Initiative Seeks to Reverse It.
The coalition backing the effort has appealed to Elon Musk for help funding the measure
- A coalition is proposing a California ballot initiative aimed at limiting OpenAI’s power.
- The initiative aims to review and potentially reverse conversions to nonprofit organizations engaged in scientific and technological research that occurred since January of 2024.
- The Coalition for AI Nonprofit Integrity, which previously opposed OpenAI’s conversion, is backing the measure.
A coalition that tried and failed to block OpenAI’s conversion earlier this year is back with a new tactic: a California ballot initiative aimed at reining in the startup’s power.
The planned initiative, dubbed the California Charitable Assets Protection Act, was filed Monday with California’s attorney general. It doesn’t mention OpenAI by name, but calls for the creation of an oversight board empowered to review and potentially reverse conversions to nonprofit organizations engaged in scientific and technological research that have happened in the state since January of 2024.
In late October, after a year of negotiating with the attorneys general of California and Delaware, OpenAI announced that it was converting its for-profit subsidiary to a public-benefit corporation.
The conversion was key to OpenAI’s fundraising efforts. The startup has seen explosive growth in recent years and has placed a host of expensive and high-profile bets on the future of AI, consumer devices and computing hardware.
OpenAI’s ascendance has drawn scrutiny from some AI safety groups, critics of Silicon Valley’s quest for superhuman intelligence and the startup’s business foes. The ballot initiative is backed by the Coalition for AI Nonprofit Integrity, or CANI, which earlier this year tried to block OpenAI’s conversion, saying it was a betrayal of the startup’s mission and would “unduly concentrate power in the hands of a few.”
“This is a baseless attempt by CANI to relitigate a decision that has already been made,” said an OpenAI spokeswoman.
OpenAI was co-founded by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in 2015 as a nonprofit organization with the goal “to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”
CANI is appealing directly to Musk for help funding the measure, which would appear on the ballot in November of next year if its proponents can gather the hundreds of thousands of signatures required. Musk, who left OpenAI in 2018, has tried to block OpenAI’s conversion in court.
The coalition said it has the initial funding to get the ballot measure in front of voters, “but to see it through to November 2026, we’re appealing to Elon Musk and others who understand what’s at stake.” Musk didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
To gather support, the coalition is launching a website called OpenTheft.com to raise funds, organize and spread its message. “We can’t do this alone. This is going to take resources to fight one of the most well-funded companies in the world,” the coalition said.
The paperwork for the ballot initiative was filed by Poornima Ramarao, the mother of an OpenAI whistleblower who died shortly after publicly accusing his former employer of breaking copyright law to train its models. The San Francisco medical examiner determined he had died by suicide.
OpenAI has said the company was “devastated” by Suchir Balaji’s death and called him a “valued member of our team.”
CANI tried earlier this year to push forward a bill in the California legislature that would have blocked OpenAI’s conversion. It sought to “prevent any individual, business or group from creating a startup venture capital nonprofit to exploit the charitable contributions of contributors and stakeholders, including knowledge, resources, and donations.”
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