> raised legitimate questions about their non-profit status and lack of non-profit related activity
What is "non-profit related activity"? IANAL but the only justification needed for non-profit designation is not being for-profit.
And maybe their structure with a for-profit subsidiary is up for debate because of this. But you don't get to be non-profit by doing "good stuff" like open sourcing things. You get it by investing all profits back into the business.
Evil Corp for Doing Evil could be a non-profit if it invested all its profits back into the business.
> What is "non-profit related activity"? What is "non-profit related activity"? IANAL but the only justification needed for non-profit designation is not being for-profit.
Good thing you are NAL, because this is flat out wrong. "Non-profit" is a term used to refer to specific tax-exempt institutions under US tax law 501(c), and has nothing to do with investing profits "back into the business" (otherwise, you could have called Amazon or Uber "non-profits").
OpenAI[1] is specifically a 501(c)(3)[2] which explicitly requires the organization's purpose be one of the following "exempt" purposes:
>charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals. [3]
If it does not continue to fill one of those purposes, it can lose its tax-exempt nonprofit status.
What is "non-profit related activity"? IANAL but the only justification needed for non-profit designation is not being for-profit.
And maybe their structure with a for-profit subsidiary is up for debate because of this. But you don't get to be non-profit by doing "good stuff" like open sourcing things. You get it by investing all profits back into the business.
Evil Corp for Doing Evil could be a non-profit if it invested all its profits back into the business.