OpenAI completes conversion to for-profit business after lengthy legal saga

Sam Altman speaks in San Francisco on 2 June 2025. Sam Altman speaks in San Francisco on 2 June 2025. OpenAI said on Tuesday it had converted its main business into a for-profit corporation, the conclusion of a lengthy and fraught legal saga. A crucial regulator, Kathy Jennings, the Delaware attorney general, said she approved the plan for the startup, which began as a non-profit in 2015, to change to a public benefit corporation, a type of for-profit entity that expresses commitment to bettering society. The company also said it had reorganized its ownership structure and signed a new agreement with its longtime backer Microsoft that gives the software giant a roughly 27% stake in OpenAI's new for-profit corporation, but changes some of the details of their close partnership.