Openai Critics Ask Billionaires For Help To Take Their Fight To The Ballot

SAN FRANCISCO — Critics of OpenAI’s multibillion dollar corporate restructuring want to bring the matter to California voters, launching two different ballot initiatives as well as a campaign website that calls on billionaires like Elon Musk to pitch in on halting the business expansion.

“Although billionaires may not be popular today, they are the only people with the resources to stop this conversion. And stopping this conversion requires funding the ballot initiative,” the website for the so-called OpenTheft campaign states.

The ballot push aims to unravel the ChatGPT maker’s hard-fought organizational revamp, which OpenAI completed in October following intense pressure from opponents who argued the changes would violate its original nonprofit mission. The attorneys general of California and Delaware, which each have oversight of the company, recently greenlit the restructuring despite heavy lobbying from nonprofit groups and others to reject it.

The initiatives will each need to receive a title and summary from the California attorney general’s office in the coming weeks before signature gathering can begin to officially place them on the ballot.

One of the initiatives is from Poornima Ramarao, the mother of a former OpenAI employee and whistleblower, who authorities determined died by suicide. Ramarao says she believes there was foul play in his death and has appealed to Musk for help. The tech mogul — an estranged OpenAI co-founder with his own lawsuit against the restructuring — has previously voiced support for her case.

Ramarao told POLITICO she’s working with a coalition that tried unsuccessfully to pass state legislation to block OpenAI’s corporate restructuring earlier this year.

Her initiative would create an oversight board with the authority to approve and reverse for-profit conversions undertaken by charitable research organizations going back to the beginning of last year.

While her request did not name OpenAI, Ramarao told POLITICO it was “100 percent” a response to the company, saying: “I’m motivated by my late son, who gave his life for [this] cause.”

The state’s ballot initiative coordinator also received paperwork, filed by Alexander Oldham, on Monday for a second effort concerning nonprofit companies’ conversions and public benefit corporations.

It aims to require that certain AI companies submit public benefit plans and to set up an independent body within the state Department of Justice that would hold them to such commitments. The entity would have power to place conditions on or deny those companies’ expansion plans.

Oldham did not immediately respond to inquiries on Tuesday.

OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, and its recent restructuring changed the company’s for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation, making it easier to raise money and go public. The nonprofit will retain a controlling stake in the for-profit, and the company has argued these changes allow it to better compete with global rivals and serve its mission of ensuring AI benefits all of humanity.

Ramarao confirmed on Tuesday that her effort is connected to the nonprofit Coalition for AI Nonprofit Integrity and its newly launched website urging tech executives like Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and crypto billionaire Vitalik Buterin to fund its ballot fight.

“After exploring all options, we believe that this is the only way we can ensure that OpenAI — this trillion-dollar, multi-trillion-dollar asset that's about to displace humanity — remains the property of humanity,” the site reads. “Instead of letting one individual's decision — the Attorney General's decision — stand, we're letting California voters decide.”

The coalition is attempting to raise up to $100 million for the campaign, and Ramarao said contributions would be disclosed on the site.

“These people have been chosen because they have donated to causes for humanity in the past. They have funds,” Ramarao explained of the decision to direct the ask toward billionaires. “And this is the biggest cause they can support.”

Musk, Moskovitz and Buterin have all made donations to AI safety research through groups such as the Future of Life Institute and Coefficient Giving (previously named Open Philanthropy).

"This is a baseless attempt by CANI to relitigate a decision that has already been made," OpenAI spokesperson Jamie Radice said in a statement about the initiative filed by Ramarao. She did not comment on the effort filed by Oldham.

CANI could not be immediately reached for comment.

As OpenAI planned its restructuring, dozens of groups raised concerns that the nonprofit would have less control over the converted for-profit, and that the company could use dollars accrued for charity to further investors’ interests.

In making its pitch to prospective donors, the OpenTheft site previously touted that it has the expertise of the law firm Nielsen Merksamer, which has worked on ballot initiatives like Proposition 22 backed by Uber and Lyft. The fight over that 2020 ballot measure was the most expensive in state history and won ride-hailing companies the ability to classify their drivers as independent contractors, rather than employees.

“Our legal team drafted and passed this historic initiative against fierce opposition,” the OpenTheft website claimed. It took down the references after POLITICO’s outreach.

Nielsen Merksamer is not involved in the initiative and asked that all references to it be removed from the site, according to partner John Moffatt. The firm had been hired by CANI to lobby on the bill it tried to push this year against OpenAI’s conversion, AB 501, which was ultimately gutted and amended.

The initiative shares similarities with AB 501, which would have prevented large, venture capital-backed nonprofits from converting to for-profit status.

OpenAI has used subpoenas in the Musk lawsuit to try to ferret out CANI’s founders and earlier this year, failed to get California state officials to investigate the nonprofit. OpenAI has long accused CANI of having ties to Musk — allegations the group has denied without disclosing who is behind its efforts. Ramarao has been one of CANI’s donors.