OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, on March 24 pledged to award $1 billion in grants over the next year, expanding what it described as its efforts to use AI for public benefit. In a statement, OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor said the foundation’s work is intended to enable AI to tackle “humanity’s hardest problems” while preparing for new challenges as the technology advances. The nonprofit said the grantmaking will prioritize life sciences and health research and will also seek to mitigate impacts from AI on jobs, the broader economy and mental health, especially for children.
The $1 billion pledge continues a broader shift in how OpenAI’s nonprofit structure is supposed to operate, after the company and regulators reshaped how the nonprofit can oversee OpenAI’s business. OpenAI originally began as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, and it has spent years building out commercial technologies such as ChatGPT and a for-profit subsidiary that is now among the world’s most highly valued startups. In October, OpenAI finalized an agreement with regulators that left the nonprofit’s board in charge of the for-profit business but eased the way for investors and the company to profit from its technologies, according to the reporting.
The nonprofit’s own financial disclosures have also shown major swings tied to that evolution. The reporting said OpenAI’s nonprofit reduced its activities after the for-profit business was incorporated in 2019—falling from listing $51 million in expenses in 2018 to $3.3 million the following year. The most recent year the nonprofit reported to the Internal Revenue Service, in 2024, showed $4,433 in contributions and $7.6 million granted out, though a nonprofit accounting expert cautioned that such forms may not capture the full picture of how OpenAI’s activities relate to its charitable mission.
Brian Mittendorf, a professor of accounting and public affairs at The Ohio State University who specializes in nonprofits, said in an email that tax forms were not “well suited” to capture OpenAI’s conduct and whether its work aligns with charitable goals. He said people often focus on the financial part but that an equally important question is whether the product the nonprofit is helping develop serves humanity in the way it envisioned. The reporting also noted that Elon Musk, an early backer of OpenAI, has raised similar concerns and sued the company, alleging that the group betrayed the nonprofit mission in pursuit of profit; the dispute is scheduled for trial in California.
OpenAI Foundation’s new grantmaking vision arrives as the company has tried to revitalize the nonprofit’s role and solicit guidance on how philanthropic plans should reflect community impacts. In 2025, OpenAI convened a temporary nonprofit advisory board to offer nonbinding guidance on how to structure its philanthropic activities as negotiations continued about how much power the nonprofit board retains over OpenAI’s business. The advisory board included labor leader Dolores Huerta and ultimately recommended that OpenAI significantly increase the resources provided to its nonprofit and consult extensively with communities about how AI affects them while shaping grantmaking.
The reporting said the nonprofit announced $40.5 million in grants to community-based nonprofits in December to support AI literacy, strengthen civic life and foster economic opportunity. It also said OpenAI’s new vision for grantmaking has taken shape as communities express concerns about electricity costs tied to data centers, lawsuits accuse AI chatbots of worsening mental health crises, and companies and advocates debate whether new AI technologies are suitable for use in war.
As part of the foundation’s staffing changes, OpenAI Foundation said it would recruit a new executive director to oversee its grantmaking. It also named Wojciech Zaremba—described as one of a handful of OpenAI co-founders still working for the company—as head of the foundation’s AI resilience function, which the nonprofit said focuses on “new challenges that inevitably arise from more capable AI.” Additionally, OpenAI Foundation said it hired Jacob Trefethen to lead its life sciences and health grantmaking; the reporting said Trefethen led a similar portfolio at the philanthropic organization Coefficient Giving, a major funder of the effective altruism community.
While the foundation’s pledge signals a larger operational push, it also underscores how OpenAI’s nonprofit mission is being tested against its broader corporate and technological footprint. The $1 billion grant commitment comes in the context of ongoing legal scrutiny of OpenAI’s nonprofit origins and the regulatory settlement that adjusted the nonprofit’s oversight role. As OpenAI Foundation lays out its priorities for health research and mitigation of AI’s impacts, the nonprofit’s ability to translate its mission into measurable outcomes is likely to remain a focus for supporters and critics alike.