OpenAI Under Fire: Tech Giant Accused of Using Legal Intimidation to Silence Critics

The ChatGPT maker faces mounting backlash as nonprofit organizations claim they’re being targeted with aggressive subpoenas in what appears to be a coordinated effort to stifle dissent.

The Subpoena Storm

Something unusual is happening in Silicon Valley. At least seven nonprofit organizations have found themselves on the receiving end of sweeping subpoenas from OpenAI, the artificial intelligence behemoth behind ChatGPT. These aren’t your typical legal requests. They’re broad. They’re aggressive. And according to the nonprofits involved, they’re designed to intimidate.

The controversy exploded into public view on October 15, 2025, when NBC News reported that multiple organizations critical of OpenAI’s corporate restructuring plans had received what they describe as overly broad subpoenas. All of these legal demands stem from an ongoing lawsuit between OpenAI and tech titan Elon Musk. But here’s the twist: most of these nonprofits had nothing to do with that lawsuit until OpenAI dragged them into it.

“This behavior is highly unusual. It’s 100% intended to intimidate,” Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, told NBC News. His organization hasn’t even received a subpoena, but he’s watching closely. “This is the kind of tactic you would expect from the most cutthroat for-profit corporation. It’s an attempt to bully nonprofit critics, to chill speech and deter them from speaking out.”

Who’s Being Targeted?

The list of organizations reads like a who’s who of AI watchdogs and civic groups. The San Francisco Foundation, Ekō, the Future of Life Institute, The Midas Project, Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology (LASST), Encode, and the Coalition for AI Nonprofit Integrity have all been served. Three of these subpoenas those issued to the San Francisco Foundation, Ekō, and the Future of Life Institute hadn’t been previously reported until now.

What do they have in common? They’ve all been critical of OpenAI’s controversial plan to restructure from a nonprofit to a for-profit public benefit corporation. Some signed open letters. Others organized petitions. One even sponsored California legislation that would regulate AI companies like OpenAI.

Six of the seven nonprofits weren’t involved in the Musk lawsuit at all before OpenAI issued the subpoenas. The seventh, Encode, had filed a supporting brief in the case but maintains it never engaged with Musk.

What OpenAI Wants

The subpoenas themselves are eye-opening. According to documents reviewed by NBC News, they demand a staggering amount of information. OpenAI wants to know about every single donor. Every dollar received. Every date of contribution. They’re asking for all communications regarding Elon Musk, Meta, and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. They want documents about OpenAI’s governance and organizational structure.

Basically, they want everything.

Sean Eskovitz, a litigator and former assistant United States attorney not involved in the case, didn’t mince words. “The breadth of these subpoenas strike me as quite aggressive and quite broad,” he told NBC News. He explained that OpenAI would need to demonstrate the requests are relevant to the litigation. “Even then, there would be concerns given the limited or non-involvement of these third parties in the litigation.”

The Musk Connection

OpenAI’s justification? They suspect these nonprofits might be secretly funded by or coordinating with Elon Musk. On October 11, OpenAI’s Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon wrote on X that after Musk sued OpenAI, several organizations “joined in and ran campaigns backing his opposition to OpenAI’s restructure. This raised transparency questions about who was funding them and whether there was any coordination.”

There’s just one problem with this theory. The nonprofits say it’s nonsense.

“We’ve Run Campaigns Against Musk”

Take Ekō, for example. This international nonprofit organization describes itself as “committed to curbing the growing power of corporations.” Emma Ruby-Sachs, Ekō’s executive director, was stunned when she received OpenAI’s subpoena in early September. Why? Because her organization had already told OpenAI they weren’t funded by Musk.

“We had written to them and said we’re over 70% funded by small online donations from individuals, and we’ve run multiple campaigns against Elon Musk in the last year,” Ruby-Sachs told NBC News. She even mentioned that Ekō ran a billboard ad in Times Square earlier this year depicting Musk as a king and calling for him to be fired during his stint at DOGE.

“The logical basis is so ridiculous that we have to assume this is just a tactic to scare us and get us to back off,” she said.

Tyler Johnston, founder of The Midas Project, expressed similar frustration on X: “We’ve never spoken with or taken funding from Musk and ilk, which we would have been happy to tell you if you asked a single time. In fact we’ve said he runs xAI so horridly it makes OpenAI ‘saintly in comparison.'”

The San Francisco Foundation’s Stand

The San Francisco Foundation presents perhaps the clearest example of a nonprofit caught in the crossfire. This organization’s mission is to strengthen communities, build civic leadership, and foster philanthropy in the San Francisco area. They’ve never received funding from Musk. They haven’t participated in his lawsuit. But they did help lead a petition in January asking California’s attorney general to prevent OpenAI’s restructuring.

Why would they care? Judith Bell, the foundation’s chief impact officer, explained it simply: “OpenAI, an organization whose assets have been estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars, is effectively one of the largest nonprofit entities in history. Its assets were accumulated for the explicit, charitable purpose of benefiting humanity.”

She continued: “SFF opposes the diversion of these immense charitable assets for private, corporate profit. We believe the law requires that the full value of these public assets must be permanently dedicated to the public good.”

The Real-World Consequences

The impact of these subpoenas extends beyond paperwork and legal fees. On October 14, Tyler Johnston revealed on X that insurance brokers had refused to cover his small watchdog organization following the subpoena and ensuing news coverage. “If you wanted to constrain an org’s speech, intimidation would be one strategy, but making them uninsurable is another, and maybe that’s what’s happened to us with this subpoena,” he wrote.

Think about that for a moment. A small nonprofit trying to hold a tech giant accountable suddenly can’t get insurance. That’s not just inconvenient. It’s potentially existential.

Internal Dissent at OpenAI

Perhaps most striking is the criticism coming from inside OpenAI itself. Joshua Achiam, the company’s head of mission alignment who reports directly to CEO Sam Altman, posted on X: “This doesn’t seem great.”

He continued: “We have a duty to and a mission for all of humanity. There are things that can go wrong with power and sometimes people on the inside have to be willing to point it out loudly.”

This is remarkable. OpenAI is known for being tight-lipped. Employees rarely criticize the company publicly. But the subpoena controversy has prompted several current and former employees to speak out.

Helen Toner, a former member of OpenAI’s board, labeled the approach as “dishonesty & intimidation tactics.” Elon Musk reshared her remark, commenting that “OpenAI was built on a lie.” Former OpenAI research scientist Steven Adler told NBC News: “I’m surprised that OpenAI’s Board would consider these actions consistent with its nonprofit legal obligations, or that they’d feel personally comfortable with this conduct.”

The Bigger Picture: OpenAI’s Transformation

To understand why this matters, you need to understand what OpenAI is trying to do. Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit with the mission to ensure artificial general intelligence “benefits all of humanity,” OpenAI has undergone a dramatic transformation. In 2019, it created a “capped-profit” structure. Now it wants to go further, converting to a for-profit public benefit corporation.

According to Reuters, OpenAI announced in March 2025 that it would raise up to $40 billion in a new funding round led by SoftBank Group, at a $300 billion valuation. But there was a catch: the round was contingent on OpenAI transitioning to for-profit status by the end of the year.

Critics argue this change would allow OpenAI to pursue profit over its charitable mission. The company, now the world’s highest-valued startup, would be able to offer traditional equity to investors instead of just a slice of capped profits.

The Restructuring Reversal

The pressure worked. Sort of. In May 2025, OpenAI announced it would remain under the control of its nonprofit parent, backing away from its most controversial restructuring plans. CEO Sam Altman wrote in a blog post: “We made the decision for the nonprofit to stay in control after hearing from civic leaders and having discussions with the offices of the Attorneys General of California and Delaware.”

But the company is still pushing ahead with plans to change its for-profit arm’s structure to allow more capital-raising. The nonprofit will control a public benefit corporation and become a major shareholder in it. It’s a compromise, but questions remain about what this actually means in practice.

The California Connection

The subpoena campaign has another dimension: California politics. Encode, one of the subpoenaed nonprofits, was a sponsor of SB 53, California legislation that imposed the first wide-ranging regulations on leading AI companies like OpenAI. The bill was signed into law despite OpenAI’s opposition.

According to Fortune, Encode’s general counsel Nathan Calvin wrote on social media: “Why did OpenAI subpoena me? Encode has criticized OpenAI’s restructuring and worked on AI regulations, including SB 53.”

OpenAI’s Head of Global Affairs Chris Lehane was publicly skeptical of the bill before it became law. He’s now attempting to shape America’s AI politics, recently helping launch a new $100 million Super PAC designed to fight against strict AI legislation.

What the Law Says

Is any of this legal? That’s complicated. Subpoenas are a normal part of litigation. Companies have the right to gather evidence. But there are limits.

“There would have to be a very close look at the scope of the subpoena in order to ensure that nonparties are not being harassed, that their speech is not being chilled, and that the proponent of the subpoena is not using the subpoena for some ulterior purpose,” Sean Eskovitz explained to NBC News.

The key question is relevance. OpenAI will need to demonstrate that the information they’re requesting is actually relevant to the Musk lawsuit. Given that most of these nonprofits had no involvement with Musk or the case, that could be a tough sell.

The Mission vs. The Money

At the heart of this controversy is a fundamental tension. OpenAI says it needs billions potentially trillions of dollars to develop artificial general intelligence. That requires a corporate structure that appeals to investors. But the company was founded with a specific mission: to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity, not just shareholders.

Tyler Whitmer, president and CEO of LASST (another subpoenaed nonprofit), put it bluntly: “It’s really clear that the subpoenas aren’t narrowly tailored to the issues of the litigation and are instead trying to leverage the litigation to get information that OpenAI is not otherwise entitled to. And that’s the best faith version of it.”

Whitmer, who is himself a lawyer, was particularly troubled by the tactics given his own opposition to Musk. “I think Musk is a malign influence in the world right now,” he told NBC News. “Part of my mission is to hold Musk’s xAI to account in the same way I hold OpenAI to account. It’s just that OpenAI is supposed to be better than this, while I don’t expect the same from Elon.”

What Happens Next?

The legal battle continues. Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI is scheduled for a jury trial in spring 2026. The subpoenaed nonprofits will need to decide how to respond whether to fight the requests in court or comply and hand over their donor information and internal communications.

Meanwhile, OpenAI continues to dominate the AI landscape. ChatGPT has hundreds of millions of users. The company is racing to develop more powerful AI systems. And it’s raising unprecedented amounts of capital to fund that work.

But the controversy over these subpoenas has revealed something important. It’s shown that even as OpenAI pursues its mission to benefit humanity, it’s willing to use hardball legal tactics against the very civic organizations that are trying to hold it accountable.

Emma Ruby-Sachs of Ekō summed it up: “This subpoena shows OpenAI is going after people around the world who are legitimately concerned citizens and trying to shut them up. OpenAI is another company, just like every other company, trying to use their money and power to pursue profits, even if it screws over the people of California and potentially all of humanity.”

The Irony

There’s a deep irony here. OpenAI’s stated mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits everyone. But when nonprofit organizations raise concerns about whether the company is staying true to that mission, they get subpoenaed. When they question whether converting to a for-profit structure might compromise OpenAI’s charitable purpose, they’re accused of being secretly funded by a rival billionaire.

The message seems clear: criticism is not welcome. Dissent will be met with legal action. And if you dare to question OpenAI’s transformation from nonprofit to profit-seeking corporation, you’d better be prepared for a fight.

As AI becomes more powerful and more central to our economy and society, the question of who controls it and for what purpose becomes increasingly important. These seven nonprofits are trying to ensure that conversation happens in public, with transparency and accountability. OpenAI’s response suggests it would prefer that conversation to happen behind closed doors or not at all.