OpenAI changed its mission statement 6 times in 9 years. It finally removed the word “safely” as a core value when it restructured into a for-profit
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Publish Date: 2026-02-26 22:32:00
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When ChatGPT maker OpenAI restructured into a for-profit company, it removed all safety language from its mission statement. With investors now on the board who directly receive a share of OpenAi’s profits, the change is prompting concerns the company would deemphasize safety as it seeks to increase the bottom line.
“OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity,” reads the company’s new mission statement, according to OpenAI’s latest IRS disclosure form, removing the word “safely” that was found in every IRS filing previously.
OpenAI’s latest IRS disclosure form 990, the Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax, marked the last time the company claimed tax-exempt status as a not-for-profit company. The form, released in November 2025 and covering the financial year 2024, reveals the company’s latest mission statement change as it ceded almost three-quarters of nonprofit control to private investors and employees.
Removing the safety language sparks concerns for some nonprofit accountability scholars like Alnoor Ebrahim, who first noticed the change and warned of a potential ominous future ahead for a company marred by growing safety concerns.
OpenAI and the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, were named as defendants in several lawsuits that allege negligence, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, wrongful death, and other product liability claims.
For Ebrahim, a professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, the mission statement change is evidence of the company choosing to forgo safety to increase the bottom line.
“I believe OpenAI’s makeover is a test case for how we, as a society, oversee the work of organizations that have the potential to both provide enormous benefits and do catastrophic harm,” wrote Ebrahim.
Unlike other big tech companies, OpenAI began as a nonprofit with a for-profit subsidiary overseen by a nonprofit board of directors. However, in late 2024, OpenAI announced…
