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Hi Dotikers!

OpenAI is changing its skin. After a year of negotiations, the company has completed its transformation into a Public Benefit Corporation, while formally transferring control to the new OpenAI Foundation. Microsoft emerges with around 27 percent of the equity; valued at roughly $135 billion; underscoring that the Redmond partner remains the industrial backbone of the venture.

Beyond the symbolism, the agreement brings long-awaited clarity. Microsoft’s intellectual property rights over OpenAI’s models and products are extended until 2032, and an independent panel of experts will now have to validate any declaration of AGI. OpenAI, for its part, commits to purchasing $250 billion worth of Azure services and gains the freedom to collaborate with third parties, to release certain models as open weights, and to no longer give Azure automatic priority. This isn’t a divorce ; it’s more like a marriage with a very detailed prenuptial agreement.

On the mission side, the Foundation holds a block of shares in the group valued at around $130 billion and is launching an initial $25 billion program focused on health and AI resilience. In other words, the nonprofit arm becomes one of the best-funded philanthropic entities in the world. Let’s call it what it is: a masterpiece of missionary capitalism, not a retreat to the monastery.

This compromise locks in OpenAI’s financial and legal stability while further anchoring Microsoft’s ecosystem at the heart of its roadmap. The safeguards around AGI and the separation from consumer hardware are steps in the right direction, but the Foundation’s actual independence will need to prove itself over time against the pull of growth incentives. For the AI ecosystem, the message is clear: the new standard is a hybrid architecture where mission and market advance together ; with finely written rules and even bigger checks.

G.

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