Nonprofits Targeted After Criticizing OpenAI’s Direction
Multiple nonprofit organizations that have advocated for greater oversight of artificial intelligence companies are facing extensive legal demands from OpenAI, according to reports. Sources indicate that at least seven organizations have received subpoenas requesting detailed information about their funding sources, internal communications, and activities related to OpenAI’s controversial restructuring from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity.
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The legal actions appear connected to OpenAI’s ongoing lawsuit with Elon Musk, who co-founded the organization before departing and has since sued to challenge its corporate transformation. However, recipients and legal analysts suggest the subpoenas go far beyond what would be relevant to that case, instead creating significant burdens for small advocacy groups.
Broad Demands Raise Concerns About Intimidation
Tyler Johnston, founder of The Midas Project, received one of the subpoenas in August. His organization produced “The OpenAI Files,” a comprehensive report examining OpenAI‘s evolution and organized an open letter requesting transparency about the company’s transition that gathered over 10,000 signatures. According to Johnston, while he expected some legal scrutiny, the “egregious” scope of the demands surprised him.
“I didn’t mind if they asked if we were funded by Musk,” Johnston told The Verge. “But they could’ve looked up our form 990 and seen we brought in less than $75,000 last year. If Musk were funding us, he’d have to be very thrifty about it.”
The subpoenas reportedly demanded not only information about potential Musk connections but complete donor records and all documents related to OpenAI’s governance and structure. Analysts suggest these requests would require extensive searches through organizational records, creating substantial legal expenses for small nonprofits.
Multiple Organizations Affected
According to reports, the organizations receiving subpoenas include The Midas Project, San Francisco Foundation, Encode, Ekō, the Future of Life Institute, Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology, and the Coalition for AI Nonprofit Integrity. Many received both organizational and personal subpoenas targeting individual staff members.
Nathan Calvin, general counsel at Encode, described being served by a sheriff’s deputy during dinner. His organization had worked on California’s landmark AI safety law, SB 53, and the subpoena specifically requested documents about that legislation’s “potential impact on OpenAI.” Calvin told The Verge this detail troubled him, wondering what OpenAI hoped to gain from seeing how Encode had lobbied for the law and who they had spoken with.
Judith Bell, chief impact officer at San Francisco Foundation, characterized the subpoena her organization received as “quite over-broad” with “lots of over-reach.” She suggested it represented “clearly a fishing expedition of them trying to figure out what we’re doing strategically” regarding OpenAI’s for-profit conversion.
Internal and External Criticism Mounts
The legal tactics have drawn criticism from within OpenAI itself. Joshua Achiam, the company’s mission alignment team lead, posted on X that “At what is possibly a risk to my whole career I will say: this doesn’t seem great.” He added that while speaking personally, “We can’t be doing things that make us into a frightening power instead of a virtuous one.”
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OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon defended the company’s actions on X, stating there was “quite a lot more to the story” than what nonprofits were claiming. He wrote that OpenAI was “actively defending against Elon in a lawsuit where he is trying to damage OpenAI for his own financial benefit.” In a follow-up post, Kwon said the company had subpoenaed nonprofits that seemed to oppose its restructuring and could theoretically be backed by Musk.
Legal Experts Question Relevance and Motives
James Grimmelmann, a professor at Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech, told The Verge that it’s “really hard” to see how determining whether Musk funded nonprofits would be relevant to the lawsuit. He characterized the subpoenas as “really oppressive to target nonprofit organizations that way.”
Grimmelmann noted that if OpenAI wanted to demonstrate good faith, it could have offered to pay the nonprofits’ legal fees. Instead, he compared the tactics to Musk’s own “ruinous litigation campaigns” against nonprofits critical of X. The professor observed that these requests would be “chilling in terms of turning over that much information to this powerful a company.”
According to industry developments, even the court has shown skepticism toward OpenAI’s approach. In August, a judge who had initially allowed discovery said the court was reconsidering the decision after “having seen the scope of the discovery and potential discovery that OpenAI is attempting to drive through this opening.”
Broader Implications for AI Governance
Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, which co-released The OpenAI Files with The Midas Project, told The Verge that OpenAI is using “lawfare” to its advantage. She suggested the company is making “paranoid accusations about the motivations and funding of these advocacy organizations that for the most part have nothing to do with OpenAI.”
Haworth contrasted OpenAI’s current approach with an opportunity the company had to differentiate itself from other tech giants. “It’s clear that they’re following in the footsteps of the Metas and the Amazons,” she said. “That’s the playbook that they’re following, and they use lawyers and political donations, super PACs, lobbyists—they use it all. Because they can.”
Anthony Aguirre, cofounder and executive director of the Future of Life Institute, which also received a subpoena, confirmed to The Verge that the demands were “quite broad.” His organization, he said, remains “laser-focused on our mission of steering AI away from large-scale risks and toward beneficial outcomes for humanity.”
For smaller organizations like The Midas Project, the consequences have been tangible. Johnston reported that after the subpoena, he tried to obtain legal insurance but was universally rejected, with at least one insurer explicitly citing concerns about the OpenAI-Musk dispute. “It kind of made us uninsurable, and that’s another way of constraining speech,” he said.
Bell of the San Francisco Foundation suggested that the subpoenas might be diverting attention from more substantive issues. “You end up with a story about the subpoenas instead of a story of what’s really at stake here,” she said, noting that her organization is primarily concerned with protecting transparency and charitable assets that “are owned by the public” as OpenAI restructures. As related innovations in AI governance continue to evolve, these legal battles may shape how technology companies interact with their critics in the future.
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