What if Open AI became a stewardship trust?

The same structure as Patagonia, to keep its mission to be open source intact?

A European group that has been a leading proponent of stewardship trusts as a way to provide mission insurance for a business has some ideas on OpenAI that are worth thinking about.

“OpenAI has, ever since its inception, been an intriguing case in the context of steward-ownership as it attempted to challenge conventional corporate ownership logic from within Silicon Valley’s high-stakes ecosystem. Founded as a nonprofit to ensure AI development would serve the public interest, it later introduced a capped-profit structure and a for-profit subsidiary to access capital without compromising its mission. In theory, this hybrid setup echoed key principles of steward-ownership: with a non-profit entity controlling the for-profit arm and thus safeguarding purpose-orientation, capped returns for investors and excluding CEO Sam Altman from equity.

But events in more recent months and years have laid bare just how fragile this model was in practice. The leadership crisis of 2023 revealed gaps in governance and accountability and was, for us, the occasion to take a closer look at OpenAI’s structure through the lens of steward-ownership. And now, OpenAI’s ongoing 2025 restructuring – including the conversion of its for-profit arm into a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), the removal of profit caps, and the introduction of traditional equity for investors and employees – could be seen as significant steps away from its original ideals and also from steward-ownership principles. While the nonprofit will retain majority control and CEO Sam Altman is not receiving direct equity, the shiftnonetheless opens the door to more conventional, return-driven dynamics