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You might say that for more than a year now, Robert Weissman has been the thorn in OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s side — and he’s not going away. In January 2024, Weissman — the co-president of advocacy group Public Citizen — became one of the first and more prominent of the company’s critics to question whetherto California Attorney General Rob Bonta that other critics later echoed, Weissman raised numerous questions about the nonprofit’s oversight of Altman’s activities and those of OpenAI’s for-profit entity.
Robert Weissman, Public Citizen’s co-president, contends that California should treat OpenAI as it did Blue Cross California when it tried to convert from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity 30 years ago.from the nonprofit to benefit the for-profit, its investors and its employees. Weissman has called on Bonta to treat San Francisco-based OpenAI as the state did Blue Cross California when it was trying to. Last week, after discussions with Bonta and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, Altman and his company announced a new restructuring plan— but not Weissman. In a Public Citizen press release, he criticized the revamped restructuring and reiterated his call for OpenAI’s nonprofit to be dissolved. In a conversation with The Examiner, Weissman talked about why OpenAI’s nonprofit should be shut down, why the company’s latest plan doesn’t address his concerns and how a new charity infused with OpenAI’s assets could continue the current nonprofit’s stated mission. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Sam Altman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, OpenAI, testifies before a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington Thursday, May 8, 2025.As I understand it, OpenAI’s announcement about keeping the nonprofit in control of its for-profit doesn’t address the concerns you’ve been raising. Correct. Basically, what they’re proposing now is a modified version of the status quo. And the status quo involves formal control of a for-profit affiliate by OpenAI nonprofit, but a reality in which there’s no evidence of the nonprofit exerting any restraint on the for-profit. In fact, when the nonprofit did try to exert control in November 2023 Sam Altman that has shown no inclination whatsoever to constrain or restrain OpenAI for-profit. Everything seems to be on track to stay the same as it’s been, which we think involves the nonprofit failing to uphold its charitable mission and letting the for-profit OpenAI be the industry frontrunner in introducing risky technologies and shunting aside ethical concerns. Other folks who have been out front on this issue have applauded the move, seeing it as a way to keep the nonprofit engaged in its mission — but you obviously don’t see that. No. There have been some colleague organizations that were arguing against a spin-off or a conversion. We have been very sympathetic to that point of view but skeptical that it was possible for the nonprofit to exert control and adherence to the values that were involved in creating OpenAI nonprofit in the first place. Whether or not you think it is possible, there’s nothing about this to suggest it’s going to happen. This is just a continuation and a restructuring so that OpenAI for-profit — now called a public-benefit corporation — presumably is going to have tradable shares and operate with more capital, but basically pursuing the same approach it has all along.Yeah. From our point of view, the nonprofit is a subsidiary of the for-profit, despite the fact that it has formal control, and it’s a barely acknowledged subsidiary at that. Sam Altman, left, OpenAI’s chief executive, speaks onstage with Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s chief technology officer, during Microsoft’s annual engineering and development conference in Seattle, May 21, 2024. Under what you’d like to see happen, the current nonprofit would be dissolved, and its assets — which include its formal control over the for-profit — would be distributed to a new charitable entity. How would that work? The model for this is the conversion of California Blue Cross. The value of the control stake is probably approaching $100 billion. OpenAI does not have $100 billion in cash, so it would have to be paid in shares. But it would need to be paid in shares that weren’t encumbered indefinitely, so the charity would be able to sell . The idea wouldn’t be to be a passive investor in OpenAI, but to obtain the cash value of those shares and distribute or use it for charitable purposes. Legally, right now, the nonprofit’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence is developed safely. If a new entity replaces and gets shares in the for-profit corporation, how does that advance the nonprofit’s mission as it exists today? And wouldn’t that succeeding entity be compromised in the same way you argue the existing one is? Wouldn’t it be pushing for the for-profit entity to be making as much money as possible, safety and human wellness be damned? Well, I think the idea would not be to continue to hold the shares. It’s not like they’re paying dividends anytime soon. The ideal would be to be able to obtain cash, but OpenAI doesn’t have cash to pay. The new charitable entity would be designed as the original one was — to pursue a charitable mission. It wouldn’t be identical to OpenAI. It might, but probably would not, start its own long-term project of developing AGI or building out . You could imagine spurring the development of in an ethical way, with an eye towards safety. It might fund various safety things. It might fund new ways to audit operations. It might ensure public access to new AI technologies. It might want to create invest in public programs at the UC system. It could do all kinds of different things. The dollar amounts are large. The opportunities would be very significant. It would be, presumably, pushing in the same direction as the original mission of OpenAI — but unlikely to be trying to create a parallel enterprise doing the same work. How is that different from, say, the California attorney general coming in and ensuring the current entity has an independent board? It might be theoretically possible to completely overturn the existing structure, but the actual entity does exist, and it has a proven record — and it’s a record of failure. This is a nonprofit that is not upholding its nonprofit mission. It’s a passive enabler of a for-profit. And it’s proven under the effective control of the for-profit. Even a new nonprofit board that was truly committed to mission would have trouble controlling for-profit OpenAI, because it’s enmeshed in so many relationships with multiple obligations and duties. This was the comment from the old board, that the way to uphold the mission might require shutting the whole thing down. And I think that was right, but there are so many stakeholders at this point, it would be very difficult to do that. It might not even be legal. A cellphone displays a new feature for ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot powered by artificial intelligence, in New York, July 10, 2023.As things stand, the nonprofit has, essentially, ownership over AGI. Do you think the new charity you propose would need to be compensated for that too, the intellectual property involved? way to get to that point is the capped-profit structure — which they want to abandon with this rearrangement — has all residual profits effectively going to the nonprofit. That will end. They must be compensated for that. If they were going to have a claim on AGI — how that’s allocated between companies pre-restructuring, I don’t actually know — but if they do, and they’re giving it up, then yeah, they must be compensated for it. Those are hard things to compensate for, because they’re complicated to value. But they have a value, and the payment must be made. Getting rid of that capped structure is transferring a claim on future profits away from the nonprofit to the for-profit. Under nonprofit law, if that’s happening, they have to be compensated. And that would require a careful look at valuation.twolverton@sfexaminer.comShakirah Simley: “We’ve got to stop the story of erasure and start to tell a story of adaptation and resilience.”You’ll get two distinctly different views depending on which way you look from inside the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, a longtime fixture serving the nearby Fillmore and Western Addition neighborhoods. Gaze out nearly any east-facing window, and you’ll see a breathtaking vista of the San Francisco skyline, a sight practically plucked from a postcard for sale at Fisherman’s Wharf or Chinatown. Turn your head to the west, towards the entrance of the facility, and you’ll see the Presidio Yard, a concrete terminal storing inactive red and gray Muni buses and trolleys attached to overhead power lines.But Shakirah Simley, executive director of the community center, has clear thoughts on the matter. She said she hopes the property is converted into affordable housing, just like the one her organization fought to build on the opposite side of the block. San Francisco City view from the rooftop of the Booker T Washington Community Service Center at 800 Presidio Ave. in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. For Simley, building low-rent bulk housing accomplishes two things: It provides more shelters for people living on the streets, and it preserves the neighborhood from gentrification. “We’ve got to stop the story of erasure and start to tell a story of adaptation and resilience,” Simley said. “That’s what I want to see here. That’s what I’m going to do.” For the last 106 years, the organization — which most locals refer to as simply “Booker T.” — has been one of the few constants in a constantly changing neighborhood. These days, the facility offers almost any social service you can think of, including accredited preschool classes, K-12 afterschool programs, college counseling, fresh meal and grocery distribution, recreational facilities, a senior center and affordable housing. Its history is on full display seemingly around every corner inside its sleek, sprawling five-story headquarters, which could easily be mistaken for a community-college campus. The walls of every floor are covered in brightly colored murals and old photos of Black leaders, some of whom passed through Booker T. Shakirah Simley, seen in front of a mural saved from the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center’s previous location: “I’m only here because of our ancestors and sisters who had that foresight and vision to preserve this land and space.”The building is also less than two blocks from Geary Boulevard, a major expressway The City widened in the 1960s and ’70s as part of its redevelopment programs known as “urban renewal.” The construction. Historians and advocates say it destroyed the Fillmore’s “Harlem of the West” era, when Black pride bustled in the streets and danced to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. But don’t tell Simley — technically a San Francisco transplant, though she’ll tell you all she did was move from her hometown of Harlem to the Harlem of the West — that the Fillmore’s glory days are a relic of the past. She said she and other local leaders are building towards a neighborhood renaissance. And Booker T., she said, is a symbol of the Black community’s permanence. The institution is an immovable pillar that has persevered even as so much around it has been uprooted. “I’m only here because of our ancestors and sisters who had that foresight and vision to preserve this land and space,” Simley said. “I see myself as a shepherd for carrying that vision and that promise that’s always been made to the community.” Simley has remained committed to that vision, even at a fraught time for many local Black organizations, many of which rely on at least some city funding to get by. About two-thirds of Booker T.’s budget comes from city subsidies, Simley said, while the rest comes from individual and corporate donations., The City’s well-intentioned but mismanaged $120 million investment in the Black community following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. “The loss of Dream Keeper funds definitely hurt us, “ Simley said. “I’ve had to build us back from that. We’ve reapplied for grants, so I guess we’ll just see what happens.” Simley argued that while the allegations against the Dream Keeper Initiative — centered around the misuse of millions of dollars in taxpayer money — are troubling, the communities served by the nonprofits it funded should not suffer the consequences. “I think we need to not throw the baby out with the bath water,” Simley said. “I want for San Francisco to not play into that awful historical playbook. I want San Francisco to do better, and I’m choosing to do better.” That’s why — even in these uncertain times — Simley said that not only has she not made cuts, she’s continued to expand, making investments such as a restaurant-grade walk-in fridge to meet the extra demand for groceries following “I have to make $5 out of 15 cents,” she said. “I don’t have a choice — I have new seniors showing up at my door every day. Where are they gonna go? Who’s gonna support them? I come from a background where you just figure it out.”Community organizing runs in Simley’s blood, she said. Her grandmother was a lifelong community leader and former member of the Black Panther party. Her mother was and still is a social worker who gave birth to Simley as a teenager. She earned her master’s degree the same day Simley graduated from college at the University of Pennsylvania. Simley and her five sisters were raised by their mother — with help from their grandmother — from in Harlem’s public housing during the 1980s. She said she knew all her neighbors, making the numerous block parties and music festivals all the more joyful and fun. Harlem is where she and her siblings learned to value local services such as community centers and public libraries as they navigated one of the Upper Manhattan enclave’s most turbulent stretches., including Harlem. Simley, who was under strict rules to be home every day before the streetlights turned on, said she got used to seeing needles and broken glass scattered across playgrounds. Several of her family members suffered from drug addiction or died from HIV and AIDS. Simley said she saw “generational poverty, structural racism, and sexism” firsthand. Her mother and grandmother encouraged her to do something about it. “Even if we didn’t have a lot, we shared with others. All throughout high school, college, and my career, I’ve carried that ethos,” she said. “Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve caused good trouble.” While in college, Simley spearheaded an effort to convince Penn to change its curriculum to require all undergrads to enroll in at least one course She moved to San Francisco in 2008 while pursuing a career in food justice. At one point, she worked at La Cocina, a nonprofit that helps jumpstart culinary careers for women of color, where she opened her own jam business called “Slow Jams.”Minnie Bell’s and a close friend of Simley. “At some point, we’re gonna get in the kitchen and bring it back.” Simley’s first foray into politics was as a legislative aide for former San Francisco Supervisor Vallie Brown, whose district included the Fillmore and Western Addition. McPherson said that at the time, she had a cousin who was living on the streets of the Fillmore. For months, Simley had been working behind-the-scenes to get him shelter and food access. McPherson said she had no idea what her friend was doing for her family until one day, her mother was out trying to get their cousin help when she ran into Simley, who was also assisting him while wearing a Minnie Bell’s shirt. “When my mom came and told me, ‘I was like, oh, Shakirah? That’s my girl. We tight,’” McPherson recalled. “When my mom told me what she did, I told her, ‘That’s what Shakirah’s about.’” In 2019, Simley was appointed as the inaugural head of The City’s Office of Racial Equity. But she left the position just two years later when she was chosen to be the top executive at Booker T., taking over one of the most historic nonprofits in The City, named after the iconic Black leader of the late 19th century. She took the helm just three years after the organization moved into its brand new $45 million home, replacing what longtime member Barbara Wilson affectionately described as a “raggedy old” brown gym.The basketball court at Booker T Washington Community Service Center at 800 Presidio Ave. in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.The new facility includes outdoor gardens and play structures, a recording studio for podcasts and music, a regulation-sized basketball court — which some NBA and WNBA players have rented out for private practices — and 50 units of affordable housing in an adjoining complex, which Simley said she had to fight for tooth-and-nail to get approved. “This new Booker T. is beyond my wildest dreams,” said Janay Washington, a Fillmore native who briefly went to the nonprofit as a kid and now has a daughter enrolled in the after-school program. Wilson has gone from attending her birthday parties at Booker T. as a teenager to now, at 81 years old, hosting the center’s weekly bingo games for seniors each Tuesday. . Barbara Ann Wilson calling out numbers for bingo during Senior Social Hour at Booker T Washington Community Service Center at 800 Presidio Ave. in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.Simley said she owes it to people such as Wilson — who lived through urban renewal and watched her friends’ homes get bulldozed — to use Booker T. to preserve the Fillmore’s legacy. “I always say my vision for the future is that there are Black people in the future,” Simley said. “We’re still here. I want people to come home to the place that raised them.” She said that means maintaining the same vibe that has led many members to create the organization’s unofficial slogan: “Booker T. is the place to be.”Mario on display at the new Nintendo store at 331 Powell St., Union Square in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.Mario on display at the new Nintendo store at 331 Powell St., Union Square in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.Click and hold your mouse button on the page to select the area you wish to save or print. You can click and drag the clipping box to move it or click and drag in the bottom right corner to resize it. When you're happy with your selection, click the checkmark icon next to the clipping area to continue.This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely!Create a password that only you will remember. 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