Geoffrey Hinton, Lawrence Lessig, Vitalik Buterin, Stephen Fry, and many others joined the letter, which calls for much greater transparency as the AI developer attempts a controversial corporate restructuring.
WASHINGTON – August 4, 2025 – More than 100 prominent AI experts, former OpenAI team members, public figures, and civil society groups signed an open letter published Monday calling for greater transparency from OpenAI.
The letter, embargoed until its release at 6:00 A.M. EDT Monday, August 4th, and jointly organized by the lead authors of Not For Private Gain, The Midas Project, and the newly-named EyesOnOpenAI Coalition (a group of California nonprofit, philanthropic and labor organizations), focuses on OpenAI’s ongoing efforts to engage in a corporate restructuring, which threatens to weaken its nonprofit mission.
OpenAI previously faced backlash over plans to disempower the nonprofit that currently controls it. While OpenAI now claims the nonprofit will remain in control of its for-profit subsidiary, others point out that the company’s plans are opaque and may completely undermine its original mission.
Concerns about the control of OpenAI and its technology are mounting as it prepares to release GPT-5 — expected to be the most powerful AI model ever released, and which many anticipate will arrive as early as this week.
In the new open letter, signatories including Geoffrey Hinton, Lawrence Lessig, Vitalik Buterin, Stephen Fry, Audrey Tang, dozens of nonprofits, 50+ professors, and nine former OpenAI team members called on OpenAI to answer seven key questions about its plans to protect the nonprofit mission. These questions demand answers about:
- OpenAI’s legal duty to prioritize its charitable mission
- Whether the nonprofit will be disempowered
- Nonprofit board members’ potential financial conflicts of interest
- OpenAI investors’ profit caps
- Commercializing AGI
- OpenAI’s commitment to its charter
- The nonprofit’s operating agreement with its for-profit subsidiary
Read the open letter.
Without transparency on these key issues, it will be impossible for the public to assess whether OpenAI is living up to its legal obligations.
This is particularly important in light of recent reporting indicating that OpenAI is renegotiating the terms of its deal with Microsoft regarding the use of AGI and related technology. The OpenAI nonprofit would, under the current deal, control the fate of AGI, an advanced and highly valuable form of AI. Giving control of AGI over to for-profit actors would be a betrayal of OpenAI’s charitable mission.
OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit with the mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. That makes everyone the legal beneficiaries of its mission, and it gives everyone a stake in protecting the integrity of its charitable mission.
“OpenAI is playing a shell game with the keys to humanity’s future,” said Nathan Calvin, Vice President of State Affairs and General Counsel at Encode AI, and a lead author of Not For Private Gain. “The public deserves much more transparency from an organization that claims to be operating in humanity’s best interest.”
“We’re trying to take OpenAI’s leadership at their word when they say they want to benefit humanity,” said Tyler Johnston, Executive Director of The Midas Project. “Now it’s time for them to show the receipts to make sure their mission is being fulfilled.”
“OpenAI was entrusted with a powerful public mission and billions in charitable assets — but it’s operating behind closed doors,” said Orson Aguilar, Co-Chair of the EyesOnOpenAI coalition. “If they truly believe AI will shape the future of humanity, then the public deserves a seat at the table. Anything less undermines their nonprofit promise.”
About the signatories
The letter has been signed by Nobel Prize winners, prominent public intellectuals, former OpenAI employees, machine learning experts, and a wide range of civil society groups. Notable signatories include Geoffrey Hinton, Sir Oliver Hart, Vitalik Buterin, Sir Stephen Fry, Audrey Tang, Lawrence Lessig, Stuart Russell, Gary Marcus, Helen Toner, the San Francisco Foundation, and the EyesOnOpenAI Coalition, among many others.
About the organizations
Encode AI is a youth-led advocacy organization that fights for a future where AI can fulfill its transformative potential while being developed responsibly. Through policy advocacy and public education, it works to steer the future of AI technology in a positive direction.
The Midas Project is a watchdog nonprofit working to ensure that AI technology benefits everybody, not just the companies developing it. It leads strategic initiatives to monitor tech companies, promote transparency in AI development, discourage corner-cutting, and advocate for the responsible development of emerging technologies.
EyesOnOpenAI is a coalition of more than 60 philanthropic, labor, and nonprofit organizations that have spoken up about the restructuring in letters to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, associated with the San Francisco Foundation and co-chaired by Orson Aguilar of LatinoProsperity.
