OpenAI’s non-profit arm reported revenues of simply $44,485 in its newest US tax submitting, regardless of its for-profit enterprise doubtless making thousands and thousands from ChatGPT.

Based in 2015, the startup was initially a non-profit group targeted on growing AI for the advantage of humanity. In 2019, it spun out a for-profit facet led by CEO Sam Altman and commenced constructing industrial merchandise, main some to query whether or not the outfit’s staff had turn out to be now extra occupied with earning money than constructing secure AI.

Now, the corporate’s odd construction is again underneath the highlight. In its newest Type-990 doc [PDF], the non-profit unit is revealed as technically exempt from paying earnings tax and submitting audited monetary statements for 2022 because it made lower than the $2 million restrict that triggers extra reporting necessities. In the meantime, its bigger for-profit facet, nonetheless, might reportedly attain a valuation of $90 billion.

Earlier this yr, Microsoft invested $10 billion for a 49 p.c stake into the corporate. OpenAI reiterated on the time that it was nonetheless ruled by its non-profit facet.

“Whereas our partnership with Microsoft features a multibillion-dollar funding, OpenAI stays a wholly unbiased firm ruled by the OpenAI Nonprofit. Microsoft is a non-voting board observer and has no management. And, as defined above, [artificial general intelligence] AGI is explicitly carved out of all industrial and IP licensing agreements,” the org beforehand acknowledged.

It is unclear how a lot income OpenAI’s for-profit enterprise makes, though its income reportedly reached $28 million final yr. It’s attainable they grew rapidly in 2023 with the discharge of GPT-4, its newest massive language mannequin powering its strongest model of ChatGPT, which it is promoting to subscribers and enterprises.

Regardless of being ruled by its non-profit arm, non-public buyers have pledged to take a position billions of {dollars} into OpenAI. Different tech corporations which are led by a non-profit group, just like the Firefox browser-maker Mozilla, have not accepted cash from enterprise capital corporations or non-public buyers.

In remarks shared with CNBC, Mozilla Basis’s President Mark Surman referred to as out OpenAI’s company construction, and mentioned: “I do not know at this level that it is a regulatory oversight challenge. I feel it is a public belief challenge. In the event that they wish to be seen as this public establishment ensuring AI is within the service of humanity, we’d like much more transparency. We have to know what is going on on.”

The Register has requested OpenAI for remark.

OpenAI’s organizational construction and relationship with Microsoft can be being investigated by commerce regulators. Final week, the UK’s Competitors and Markets Authority, and the US Federal Commerce Fee, mentioned they had been debating whether or not to research whether or not OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft counts as a merger, and whether or not such a deal might need violated antitrust legal guidelines. ®