OpenAI

OpenAI was founded in December 2015 as a non-profit research laboratory with a $1 billion pledge from its founders — including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Peter Thiel. The stated mission was to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity rather than being controlled by any single company or government. Musk later said he co-founded OpenAI specifically because he was terrified of what Google might build.

In February 2018, Elon Musk resigned from OpenAI's board, citing a potential conflict of interest with Tesla's AI development. The official explanation was accepted at the time. Later reporting suggested Musk had wanted to take control of OpenAI himself, was refused, and left in frustration. Musk subsequently sued OpenAI, alleging it had betrayed its founding mission. The lawsuit was eventually dropped, then refiled.

OpenAI converted from a non-profit to a "capped profit" structure in 2019 — meaning investors could receive returns up to 100 times their investment, after which profits would return to the non-profit. Microsoft invested $1 billion. Critics argued this was a non-profit in name only. OpenAI argued it needed capital to compete with Google. Both were correct.

OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022 as what the company described as "a research preview." It reached one million users in five days. It reached 100 million users in two months — the fastest consumer product adoption in history. Google declared an internal emergency. Microsoft rushed to integrate GPT-4 across its entire product suite. The AI era had visibly, undeniably begun.

On November 17, 2023, OpenAI's board fired CEO Sam Altman without warning, citing a loss of confidence in his candour. Within 48 hours, nearly every OpenAI employee — over 700 people — signed a letter threatening to resign and join Microsoft unless Altman was reinstated. Five days later, Altman returned as CEO. Three of the four board members who had fired him were replaced. It was the most dramatic corporate governance crisis in Silicon Valley history.