God help me, after reading a bit more through OpenAI’s 990, I agree with you that he may have a legitimate complaint that OpenAI committed fraud when it solicited his contribution.
The 990 is an odd one, but it gets so much worse when you compare the 2018 990 to the 2022 990. In essence, between the two filings it went from a $50 million/year corporation to a $44 thousand / year organization, with losses over $1 Million in 2022. Altman’s salary goes from about 50/50 OpenAI NGO/for profit to pretty much 100% for profit entity controlled by OAI.
OAI has a for profit, a disregarded entity, OpenAI GP, which controls two for profit companies OpenAI LG and Aestas LP. In the context of the 990, control means at least 51% ownership.
I haven’t read the filing yet, but to me the big story isn’t that OAI made a deal with Microsoft, but that the 990s heavily imply that Altman set up an NGO, used grants and stock donations to develop AI which he then transferred to the for-profits, which he may own up to 49%, using the scheme to enrich himself. It has echoes of Elizabeth Holmes or Sam Bankman-Fried, just with an NGO instead of a for-profit company.
That OpenAI developed an actual product is beside the point. It very much looks like a charity was looted to enrich the senior management. If this suit proceeds, discovery is going to be very interesting.
