OpenAI ex-employees worry about company’s control over their millions of dollars in shares
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Microsoft Build conference at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on May 21, 2024.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
OpenAI plans to allow stakeholders to sell a portion of their shares every year, but the company, which has been valued at over $80 billion, is taking a restrictive approach that’s raised concerns among current and former employees about the startup’s power to determine who participates, CNBC has learned.
Due to OpenAI’s skyrocketing valuation following the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, many early employees are sitting on millions of dollars worth of equity. With no IPO on the horizon and a price tag that makes the company too expensive to be acquired, the only way for shareholders to realize any value from their equity in the near term is through secondary stock sales.
However, current and former OpenAI employees have been increasingly concerned about access to liquidity, according to interviews and documents shared internally. Those fears have intensified in recent weeks after reports that the company had the power to claw back vested equity, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the information they shared is confidential.
In an attempt to assuage some of those concerns, OpenAI recently circulated a document, obtained by CNBC, titled, “Overview and Recap of OpenAI’s Tender Process,” detailing how the company has conducted equity purchases in the past and how it plans to handle them in the future. The issue has become a major topic of conversation at OpenAI and among people who have recently left, according to internal documents, Slack messages and exit agreements viewed by CNBC, as well as conversations with multiple former OpenAI employees.
OpenAI has told employees that it will try to hold one tender offer roughly every year, but that depends on how both the company and the market are faring at the time, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
It’s the latest controversy at OpenAI, which has been at the center of the tech universe for much of the past 18 months, most recently announcing a partnership with Apple on Monday to integrate ChatGPT and Siri. Backed by roughly $13 billion from Microsoft, OpenAI has an atypical “capped-profit” model, with a nonprofit as the governing entity for the for-profit subsidiary.
Less than seven months ago, co-founder Sam Altman was suddenly ousted as CEO due to a conflict with the board, before being abruptly reinstated days later after an uproar among investors and loyal staffers.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, meanwhile, are set to open antitrust investigations into Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia, examining their influence on the AI industry, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNBC last week. And last month, OpenAI disbanded its team focused on the long-term risks of AI just a year after forming the group. That came shortly after OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike, announced their departures, with Leike writing in a post on X that OpenAI’s “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products.”
As OpenAI has grown, the company has used aggressive tactics to get employees to sign exit agreements that affect the future of their stock holdings.
“If you have any vested Units and you do not sign the exit documents, including the General Release, as required by company policy, it is important to understand that, among other things, you will not be eligible to participate in future tender events or other liquidity opportunities that we may sponsor or facilitate as a private company,” OpenAI wrote in the agreement, which was viewed by CNBC.
The paperwork for departing employees says that in order to participate in tender events and liquidity opportunities, the person must be in compliance with “all applicable company policies, as determined by OpenAI.”
Last month, OpenAI announced it would backtrack on a controversial decision to make former employees choose between signing a non-disparagement agreement that would never expire and keeping their vested equity in the company. An internal memo, viewed by CNBC, was sent to former employees and shared with current staffers.
The memo, addressed to each former employee, said that at the time of the person’s departure from OpenAI, “you may have been informed that you were required to execute a general release agreement that included a non-disparagement provision in order to retain the Vested Units [of equity].”
“We’re incredibly sorry that we’re only changing this language now,” an OpenAI spokesperson told CNBC after the company changed course. “It doesn’t reflect our values or the company we want to be.”
In an email sent to CNBC late Monday, an OpenAI spokesperson said, “All eligible current and former employees have been offered opportunities for liquidity at the same price in the past, regardless of where they work or what they signed at departure.” The company doesn’t expect that to change, the spokesperson said.
‘Further questions to address’
A former employee, who shared his OpenAI correspondence with CNBC, asked the company for additional confirmation that his equity and that of others was secure.
“I think there are further questions to address before I and other OpenAl employees can feel safe from retaliation against us via our vested equity,” the ex-employee wrote in an email to the company in late May. He added, “Will the company exclude current or former employees from tender events under any circumstances? If so, what are those circumstances?”
The person also asked whether the company will “force former employees to sell their units at fair market value under any circumstances” and what those circumstances would be. He asked OpenAI for an estimate on when his questions would be addressed, and said he hasn’t yet received a response. OpenAI told CNBC that it is responding to individual inquiries.
According to internal messages viewed by CNBC, another employee who resigned last week wrote in OpenAI’s “core” Slack channel that “when the news about the vested equity clawbacks provisions in our exit paperwork broke 2.5 weeks ago, I was shocked and angered.” Details that came out later “only strengthened those feelings,” the person wrote, and “after fully hearing leadership’s responses, my trust in them has been completely broken.”
The person then tagged CEO Sam Altman in the message, highlighting what he described as a paradox in Altman’s stated effort to responsibly build artificial general intelligence, or AGI.
“You often talk about our responsibility to develop AGI safely and to distribute the benefits broadly,” he wrote. “How do you expect to be trusted with that responsibility when you failed at the much more basic task” of not threatening “to screw over departing employees,” the person added.
The company has also, in the past, opened up “donation rounds” to current employees, allowing them to donate a certain amount of their vested equity to charity, which brings with it tax incentives. Former employees could be excluded, as the donation rounds will likely be offered “to active employees only and are not guaranteed to happen,” according to messages viewed by CNBC.
Much of the discussion around future stock issues will now likely include a new voice, after OpenAI announced on Monday that it hired Sarah Friar, who was previously CEO of Nextdoor and CFO of Square, as its finance chief.
OpenAI, which was founded in 2015, has held three tender rounds to date. The first was in mid-2021, the second was between April and June 2023, and the latest was between November 2023 and March 2024.
For former employees, the rounds typically took place months after transactions for current staffers, according to an internal document. In at least two tender offers, the sales limit for former employees was $2 million, compared to $10 million for current employees.
In addition to current and former employees, OpenAI has a third tier for share sales that consists of ex-employees who now work at competitors. Rather than being an official tender, the third group participates in “direct secondary transactions facilitated directly between the buyer (OpenAI or pre-approved investors) and seller,” according to an internal document.
OpenAI said in the document that the reason for separating current and former employees is to avoid delaying the sale process for existing workers and to get a sense of how much equity they want to sell before committing to terms for those who have left.
OpenAI said the reason for the third category had to do with “safeguarding competitively sensitive information,” since “by law, we must share certain information with all sellers and buyers in the same tender offer.”
“For example, in prior tender offers, we have disclosed detailed financial data, and non-public information about our Microsoft deals, even when the negotiations were still ongoing and unannounced,” the company wrote in the internal document.
Larry Albukerk, founder of EB Exchange, which helps tech workers with pre-IPO stock sales, told CNBC that while companies have a lot of latitude in how they handle tender offers, as long as it’s written in the contract, creating an adversarial relationship with former employees can be damaging for morale.
“Ultimately, employees are going to become ex-employees,” Albukerk said. “You’re sending a signal that, the second you leave, you’re not on our team, and we’re going to treat you like you’re on the other team. You want people to root for you even after they leave.”
Stock worth $0?
Of even greater concern, some insiders said, is language in the terms of a corporate document related to Aestas, a company OpenAI set up to manage the offerings. The document suggests ex-employees could be stripped of their equity.
For anyone who leaves OpenAI, “the Company may, at any time and in its sole and absolute discretion, redeem (or cause the sale of) the Company interest of any Assignee for cash equal to the Fair Market Value of such interest,” the document states.
Former OpenAI employees said that anytime they received a unit grant, they had to send a document to the IRS stating that the fair market value of the grant was $0. CNBC viewed a copy of the document. Ex-employees told CNBC they’ve asked the company if that means they could lose their stock for nothing.
OpenAI said it’s never canceled a current or former employee’s vested equity or required a repurchase at $0.
Legal experts said OpenAI’s treatment of ex-employees who leave to work at competitors could be problematic, especially in California.
In April, the FTC voted to ban non-compete agreements for for-profit companies. A final rule will go into effect in September. The ban not only protects people from punishment for accepting another role, but also covers any agreement that “penalizes a worker” or “functions to prevent” a worker from working at a competitor.
An attorney, who asked not to be named due to client conflicts in the space, said that OpenAI’s behavior towards those ex-employees leaves a “plausible argument” for future litigation tied to the non-compete issue. Another attorney, who also requested anonymity, called it “undue pressure.”
“It sounds like they are playing hardball, but they would be far from the only company to act like this in the resale of their private securities,” Doug Brayley, a partner at Ropes & Gray, said in an interview. “Private companies generally leave themselves a lot of discretion about how to treat the repurchase of their equity.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks alongside U.S. President Donald Trump to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
At Tesla, vehicle sales are slumping, profits are thinning and revenue from regulatory credit sales are poised to dry up due to Republican-led policy changes.
In the past, CEO Elon Musk’s futuristic promises have convinced investors to look past top and bottom line numbers.
Not now.
Following another fairly dismal earnings report this week, Musk told analysts on the call that Tesla’s electric vehicles will soon become driverless, making money for owners while they sleep. He also said Tesla’s robotaxi service, which the company recently started testing in a limited capacity in Austin, Texas, will expand to other states, with a goal of being able to reach half the U.S. population by year-end, “assuming we have regulatory approvals.”
It didn’t matter.
Tesla shares plummeted 8% on Thursday as investors focused on the immediate challenges facing the company, including the rapid rise of lower-cost EV competitors, particularly in China, and a political backlash against Musk that harmed Tesla’s brand in the U.S. and Europe.
Automotive sales declined 16% year-over-year in the second quarter for the EV maker, with weak sales numbers continuing in Europe and California. Musk said there could be a “few rough quarters” ahead because of the EV credits expiring and President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The stock bounced back some on Friday, gaining 3.5%, but still ended the week down and has now fallen 22% this year, the worst performance among tech’s megacaps. The Nasdaq rose 1% for the week and is up more than 9% in 2025, closing at a record on Friday.
“Look, we love robotaxis. And robots,” wrote analysts at Canaccord Genuity, who recommend buying Tesla’s stock, in a note after the earnings report. “Over time, Tesla is well positioned to benefit from these future-forward opportunities.”
The analysts, however, said that they’re focused on the profit and loss statement, writing: “But we love growth too, in the here and now. We need the P&L dynamics to turn.”
Analysts at Jefferies described the earnings update as “a bit dull.” And Goldman Sachs said Tesla’s robotaxi effort is “still small” with limited technical data points.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Musk, who has previously called himself “pathologically optimistic,” has been able to sway shareholders and send the stock soaring at times with promises of self-driving cars, humanoid robots and more affordable EVs.
But after a decade of missed self-imposed deadlines on autonomous driving, Wall Street is watching Tesla fall behind Alphabet’s Waymo in the U.S. and Baidu’s Apollo Go in China.
In Tesla’s shareholder deck, the company said the second quarter marked the start of its “transition from leading the electric vehicle and renewable energy industries to also becoming a leader in AI, robotics and related services.” The company didn’t offer any new guidance for growth or profits for the year ahead.
Regulatory hurdles
Business Insider reported on Friday that Tesla told staff its robotaxi service could launch in the San Francisco Bay Area as soon as this weekend.
But Tesla hasn’t applied for permits that would be required to run a driverless ridehailing service in California, CNBC confirmed. The company would first need authorizations from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
The CPUC told CNBC on Friday, that under existing permits, Tesla can only operate a human-driven chartered vehicle service, not carry passengers in robotaxis.
Waymo driverless vehicles wait at a traffic light in Santa Monica, California, on May 30, 2025.
Daniel Cole | Reuters
On the earnings call, Musk and other Tesla execs claimed the company was working on regulatory approvals to launch in Nevada, Arizona, Florida and other markets, in addition to San Francisco, but offered no details about what would be required.
Within Austin, the company said its robotaxi service had driven 7,000 miles, and that Tesla has been restricting its robotaxis’ to roads with a speed limit of 40 miles per hour. The Austin service involves a small fleet of about 10 to 20 Model Y vehicles equipped with the company’s latest self-driving systems.
The Tesla robotaxis rely on remote supervision by employees in a customer service center, and a human safety supervisor in the front passenger seat, ready to intervene if needed.
Compare that to what Alphabet said on its second-quarter earnings call the same day as Tesla’s results.
“The Waymo Driver has now autonomously driven over 100 million miles on public roads, and the team is testing across more than 10 cities this year, including New York and Philadelphia,” Alphabet said. Meanwhile, Waymo has become significant enough that Alphabet added a category to its Other Bets revenue description in its latest quarterly filing.
“Revenues from Other Bets are generated primarily from the sale of autonomous transportation services, healthcare-related services and internet services,” the filing said. The Other Bets segment remains relatively small, with revenue coming in at $373 million in the quarter.
Regardless of investor skepticism, Musk is more bullish than ever.
On Friday, the world’s richest person posted on his social network X that he thinks Tesla will someday be worth $20 trillion. On the earnings call earlier in the week, he said that when it comes to AI for cars and robots, “Tesla is actually much better than Google by far” and “much better than anyone at real world AI.”
CORRECTION: The Waymo Driver has now autonomously driven over 100 million miles on public roads, according to Alphabet. A previous version misstated the number of miles.
WATCH: Tough quarter for Tesla
A vehicle Tesla is using for robotaxi testing purposes on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, US, on Sunday, June 22, 2025.
Tim Goessman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
In an earnings call this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased an expansion of his company’s fledgling robotaxi service to the San Francisco Bay Area and other U.S. markets.
But California regulators are making clear that Tesla is not authorized to carry passengers on public roads in autonomous vehicles and would require a human driver in control at all times.
“Tesla is not allowed to test or transport the public (paid or unpaid) in an AV with or without a driver,” the California Public Utilities Commission told CNBC in an email on Friday. “Tesla is allowed to transport the public (paid or unpaid) in a non-AV, which, of course, would have a driver.”
In other words, Tesla’s service in the state will have to be more taxi than robot.
Tesla has what’s known in California as a charter-party carrier permit, which allows it to run a private car service with human drivers, similar to limousine companies or sightseeing services.
The commission said it received a notification from Tesla on Thursday that the company plans to “extend operations” under its permit to “offer service to friends and family of employees and to select members of the public,” across much of the Bay Area.
But under Tesla’s permit, that service can only be with non-AVs, the CPUC said.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles told CNBC that Tesla has had a “drivered testing permit” since 2014, allowing the company to operate AVs with a safety driver present, but not to collect fees. The safety drivers must be Tesla employees, contractors or designees of the manufacturer under that permit, the DMV said.
In Austin, Texas, Tesla is currently testing out a robotaxi service, using its Model Y SUVs equipped with the company’s latest automated driving software and hardware. The limited service operates during daylight hours and in good weather, on roads with a speed limit of 40 miles per hour.
Robotaxis in Austin are remotely supervised by Tesla employees, and include a human safety supervisor in the front passenger seat. The service is now limited to invited users, who agree to the terms of Tesla’s “early access program.”
On Friday, Business Insider, citing an internal Tesla memo, reported that Tesla told staff it planned to expand its robotaxi service to the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend. Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment on that report.
In a separate matter in California, the DMV has accused Tesla of misleading consumers about the capabilities of its driver assistance systems, previously marketed under the names Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (or FSD).
Tesla now calls its premium driver assistance features, “FSD Supervised.” In owners manuals, Tesla says Autopilot and FSD Supervised are “hands on” systems, requiring a driver at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at all times.
But in user-generated videos shared by Tesla on X, the company shows customers using FSD hands-free while engaged in other tasks. The DMV is arguing that Tesla’s license to sell vehicles in California should be suspended, with arguments ongoing through Friday at the state’s Office of Administrative Hearings in Oakland.
Under California state law, autonomous taxi services are regulated at the state level. Some city and county officials said on Friday that they were out of the loop regarding a potential Tesla service in the state.
Stephanie Moulton-Peters, a member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, said in a phone interview that she had not heard from Tesla about its plans. She urged the company to be more transparent.
“I certainly expect they will tell us and I think it’s a good business practice to do that,” she said.
Moulton-Peters said she was undecided on robotaxis generally and wasn’t sure how Marin County, located north of San Francisco, would react to Tesla’s service.
“The news of change coming always has mixed results in the community,” she said.
Brian Colbert, another member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, said in an interview that he’s open to the idea of Tesla’s service being a good thing but that he was disappointed in the lack of communication.
“They should have done a better job about informing the community about the launch,” he said.
Alphabet’s Waymo, which is far ahead of Tesla in the robotaxi market, obtained a number of permits from the DMV and CPUC before starting its driverless ride-hailing service in the state.
Waymo was granted a CPUC driverless deployment permit in 2023, allowing it to charge for rides in the state. The company has been seeking amendments to both its DMV and CPUC driverless deployment permits as it expands its service territory in the state.
— NBC’s David Ingram reported from San Francisco.
WATCH: Waymo testing self-driving cars with human drivers in New York and Philadelphia
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday said Shengjia Zhao, the co-creator of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, will serve as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs.
Zuckerberg has been on a multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence hiring blitz in recent weeks, highlighted by a $14 billion investment in Scale AI. In June, Zuckerberg announced a new organization called Meta Superintelligence Labs that’s made up of top AI researchers and engineers.
Zhao’s name was listed among other new hires in the June memo, but Zuckerberg said Friday that Zhao co-founded the lab and “has been our lead scientist from day one.” Zhao will work directly with Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI who is acting as Meta’s chief AI officer.
“Shengjia has already pioneered several breakthroughs including a new scaling paradigm and distinguished himself as a leader in the field,” Zuckerberg wrote in a social media post. “I’m looking forward to working closely with him to advance his scientific vision.”
In addition to co-creating ChatGPT, Zhao helped build OpenAI’s GPT-4, mini models, 4.1 and o3, and he previously led synthetic data at OpenAI, according to Zuckerberg’s June memo.
Meta Superintelligence Labs will be where employees work on foundation models such as the open-source Llama family of AI models, products and Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research projects.
The social media company will invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” into AI compute infrastructure, Zuckerberg said earlier this month.
“The next few years are going to be very exciting!” Zuckerberg wrote Friday.
WATCH: Meta announces massive ‘Prometheus’ & ‘Hyperion’ data center plans
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike