Blog

OpenAI supporters

We’re excited to welcome new donors to OpenAI.

Abstract painting of a colorful group of people, generated by DALL·E 2

Illustration: Justin Jay Wang × DALL·E

February 20, 2018

We’re excited to welcome the following new donors to OpenAI: Jed McCalebGabe NewellMichael SeibelJaan Tallinn, and Ashton Eaton and Brianne Theisen-EatonReid Hoffman is significantly increasing his contribution. Pieter Abbeel (having completed his sabbatical with us), Julia Galef, and Maran Nelson are becoming advisors to OpenAI. Additionally, Elon Musk will depart the OpenAI Board but will continue to donate and advise the organization. As Tesla continues to become more focused on AI, this will eliminate a potential future conflict for Elon.

We’re broadening our base of funders to prepare for the next phase of OpenAI, which will involve ramping up our investments in our people and the compute resources necessary to make consequential breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. OpenAI was founded a little over two years ago and since that time we’ve paired our research efforts with applied work to push the limits of what AI systems are capable of via our work in robotics and Dota. That’s going to continue, and in the coming months you can also expect us to articulate the principles with which we’ll be approaching the next phase of OpenAI, and the policy areas in which we wish to see changes to ensure AI benefits all of humanity.

The Board is now Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Holden Karnofsky, and Sam Altman. We will add another director soon, and plan over time to further expand the Board. If you’re interested in working with us on this mission, consider joining OpenAI.