OpenAI Restructures as Public Benefit Corporation While Expanding Defense Partnerships

OpenAI has completed a major corporate restructuring, adopting a new Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) structure in October 2025 after receiving approval from the attorneys general of California and Delaware. The restructuring marks a significant evolution for the company that originally launched as a non-profit in 2015.

Under the new structure, the for-profit branch is now known as OpenAI Group PBC, while the non-profit entity has been renamed to the OpenAI Foundation. The Foundation holds a 26% stake in the PBC, Microsoft owns 27%, and the remaining 47% is owned by employees and other investors.

The company has also been actively expanding its defense partnerships. In December 2024, OpenAI announced a partnership with defense-tech company Anduril Industries to build drone defense technologies for the United States and its allies. Additionally, OpenAI tools are considered essential for AFRICOM mission, according to documents revealed by The Intercept.

OpenAI continues to dominate the consumer AI market with ChatGPT, which garnered over a million signups within the first five days of its launch in December 2022. The company has since expanded its product offerings to include GPT-4, DALL-E image generation, and Sora video generation.

Despite its success, OpenAI has faced criticism. The company has been sued by music publishers for alleged copyright infringement related to song lyrics, and has faced scrutiny over its data annotation practices. OpenAI has also been criticized for reduced transparency about its technical specifications, particularly regarding GPT-4.

The company revenue projections have been ambitious, with anonymous sources citing expectations of $200 million in 2023 and $1 billion in 2024. The continued investment from Microsoft, currently valued at $10 billion, has been crucial to OpenAI expansion plans.