OpenAI’s Mission Drift: What 8 Years of Tax Filings Reveal About AI’s Most Famous Company

How a nonprofit dedicated to “benefiting humanity as a whole” quietly dropped safety language and financial constraints

In 2016, OpenAI debuted with a bold, almost idealistic mission: advance digital intelligence in a way that benefits humanity as a whole, “unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.” The organization promised to “openly share our plans and capabilities along the way” — a refreshing contrast to the secretive AI labs that came before.

Fast forward to 2024, and that mission has been whittled down to just 14 words: “OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”

What happened in between tells a fascinating story about the tension between nonprofit ideals and commercial realities — and it’s all documented in their IRS filings.

The Core Insight

Simon Willison recently dug through OpenAI’s tax filings on ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, tracking how their mission statement evolved from 2016 to 2024. The changes are subtle but telling:

• 2016: The original mission emphasized community involvement and open sharing
• 2018: Dropped the commitment to “build AI as part of a larger community”
• 2020: Removed “as a whole” from benefiting humanity — confidence growing
• 2021: First mention of “general-purpose artificial intelligence,” dropped “help the world build safe AI” in favor of doing it themselves
• 2022: Added “safely” — the last time safety language appears
• 2024: Mission reduced to its bare minimum — no safety mention, no financial constraints

Why This Matters

The evolution of OpenAI’s mission statement reflects a broader industry pattern: as AI capabilities have grown more powerful and commercially valuable, the organizations developing them have quietly shifted their priorities.

The 2024 mission drop is particularly striking. Removing “unconstrained by a need to generate financial return” isn’t just semantic — it was the foundational promise that distinguished OpenAI from profit-driven competitors. Now, with Microsoft as a major investor and a reported $14 billion in funding, that distinction has blurred.

Meanwhile, the complete disappearance of “safety” language from their public-facing mission raises questions. If a nonprofit’s own stated purpose no longer mentions safety, what accountability remains?

Key Takeaways

• Transparency in nonprofit filings provides unique insights — IRS mission statements have legal weight and can’t be changed casually
• “General-purpose AI” replaced “digital intelligence” — signals a shift from academic curiosity to product-focused development
• Community and openness commitments vanished — what was once a collaborative vision became a corporate one
• Safety language was quietly dropped — the last mention was 2022; by 2024 it was gone entirely
• Financial return constraints were removed — the core differentiator from for-profit competitors no longer applies

Looking Ahead

The contrast with Anthropic is instructive. As a “public benefit corporation” rather than a 501(c)(3), Anthropic faces different disclosure requirements. Their mission — “responsibly develop and maintain advanced AI for the long term benefit of humanity” — has remained remarkably stable since 2021.

What both companies share is the challenge of balancing ambitious AI development with public benefit commitments. As AGI approaches, the question isn’t just about what these companies say in their mission statements — it’s about what they actually do when powerful AI capabilities conflict with commercial interests.

The IRS filings tell one story. The actual trajectory of AI development tells another.

Based on analysis of Simon Willison’s research on OpenAI’s IRS mission statements (2016-2024)