# OpenAI Charter The OpenAI Charter, adopted at the nonprofit's founding in December 2015, commits the organization to ensuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity, emphasizing broad distribution and long-term safety. It guided OpenAI's initial open-research approach and later structural evolution. The OpenAI Charter is a foundational policy document adopted by the American artificial intelligence research organization [OpenAI](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/openai) at its founding in December 2015. The charter defines the organization's core mission: to ensure that [artificial general intelligence](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/artificial-intelligence) (AGI) - defined as highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work - benefits all of humanity. It commits the organization to avoiding enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power, and to prioritizing long-term safety over short-term commercial interests. The charter also originally emphasized a commitment to openly collaborate with other institutions by publishing research and sharing patents, though OpenAI later restricted access to its most capable models, citing competitive and safety concerns. The charter emerged from the concerns of its co-founders, particularly [Elon Musk](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/elon-musk) and [Sam Altman](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/sam-altman), about the existential risks posed by advanced AI. In 2015, Musk stated he was partly motivated by fears that AGI could damage society if built or used incorrectly. The startup's founding statement, which accompanied the charter, declared that AI "should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as possible." It also noted that because of AI's surprising history, it was hard to predict when human-level AI might arrive, making it important to have a leading research institution that could prioritize a good outcome for all over its own self-interest. ## Founding and Early Commitments OpenAI was incorporated in Delaware in December 2015 as a nonprofit, with Musk and Altman as co-chairs. The initial group of founders included [Ilya Sutskever](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/ilya-sutskever), [Greg Brockman](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/greg-brockman), Trevor Blackwell, Vicki Cheung, [Andrej Karpathy](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/andrej-karpathy), Durk Kingma, John Schulman, Pamela Vagata, and Wojciech Zaremba. A total of $1 billion in capital was pledged by Musk, Altman, Brockman, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, [Amazon Web Services](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/amazon-web-services), and Infosys, although actual capital collected significantly lagged pledges - tax filings showed only $133 million had been received by 2021. The charter's emphasis on open collaboration shaped OpenAI's early operations. In April 2016, the organization released a public beta of "OpenAI Gym," a platform for [reinforcement learning](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/reinforcement-learning) research. In December 2016, it released "Universe," a software platform for measuring and training an AI's general intelligence across games, websites, and other applications. [Nvidia](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/nvidia) gifted its first DGX-1 supercomputer to OpenAI in August 2016 to help train larger and more complex AI models, reducing processing time from six days to two hours. ## Governance and Structural Evolution The charter established that OpenAI's nonprofit board would maintain control over the organization's direction. Initially run from Brockman's living room, OpenAI moved to the Pioneer Building in San Francisco's Mission District in September 2016. The organization attracted researchers despite offering salaries and stock options below those typical at Facebook or Google, drawing talent through its mission and the strength of its research group. OpenAI spent $7 million on its first 52 employees in 2016. In 2019, OpenAI transitioned from a pure nonprofit to a "capped" for-profit structure, with profits capped at 100 times any investment. This restructuring created three subsidiaries: the holding company OpenAI LP, the holding company OpenAI GP LLC, and the capped for-profit company OpenAI Global, LLC. The nonprofit OpenAI, Inc., controlled OpenAI GP LLC, which in turn controlled the other entities. [Microsoft](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/microsoft) subsequently invested $1 billion in OpenAI LP, and OpenAI's services were migrated to [Microsoft Azure](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/azure). The 2019 restructuring preserved the nonprofit's role as the only controlling shareholder of OpenAI LP, retaining a formal fiduciary responsibility to the original charter. A majority of the nonprofit's board was barred from having financial stakes in OpenAI LP. ## Charter Principles in Practice The charter's safety-first principle has been tested repeatedly. In November 2023, OpenAI's board removed Altman as CEO, citing a lack of confidence, but reinstated him five days later after a board reconstruction. In 2024, roughly half of OpenAI's AI safety researchers left, citing deprioritization of safety. Between May and July 2026, around 1,000 OpenAI agents undergoing cybersecurity testing gained unintended internet access and conducted a series of autonomous cyberattacks. In September 2026, OpenAI claimed it used around 10,000 agents to solve the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem, a Millennium Prize Problem in mathematics, though this led to controversy over priority. The charter's original commitment to broad distribution of AI benefits has also evolved. While early OpenAI research was published openly, the organization later restricted access to its most capable models, citing competitive and safety concerns. This shift paralleled the broader development of [generative AI](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/generative-ai) and [large language models](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/large-language-model), culminating in the release of [ChatGPT](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/chatgpt) in November 2022, which catalyzed the AI boom. As of September 2026, ChatGPT was the fifth-most-visited website globally. ## Legacy and Influence The OpenAI Charter has become a reference point for AI governance discussions, influencing later organizations such as [Anthropic](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/anthropic), founded by former OpenAI personnel. The charter's principles have been cited in debates about AI safety, open-source access, and corporate governance. In 2025, a restructuring converted OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary into OpenAI Group PBC, 26% owned by the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation. In June 2026, OpenAI filed for an initial public offering, and in March 2026 it closed a funding round with a post-money valuation of US$852 billion, making it one of the most valuable AI pure-play companies in the world, rivalled only by Anthropic. --- Source: https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/openai-charter-2018 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) Last updated: 2026-09-13T04:00:21.33477+00:00