OpenAI Chief Govt Officer Sam Altman obtained a modest $76,001 in compensation final yr, up barely from $73,546 in 2022, a newly launched tax submitting reveals.
Altman, who’s price a minimum of $2 billion, has beforehand mentioned he will get paid “whatever the minimum for health insurance is.” He has additionally repeatedly mentioned he doesn’t personal fairness in OpenAI. Nevertheless, the San Francisco-based synthetic intelligence startup has mentioned giving him a stake as a part of a attainable shift to changing into a for-profit enterprise, Bloomberg reported.
Altman’s paycheck was included in a submitting that US-based nonprofits are required to submit yearly to the Inner Income Service. The 2023 disclosure covers a tumultuous interval for OpenAI and the nonprofit that oversees it. The yr began with the skyrocketing reputation of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT and ended with Altman’s temporary ouster after clashing with the board.
OpenAI’s co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who performed a key position in firing Altman and left the corporate in Might, obtained $322,201 in 2023, making him one of many highest paid officers listed on the shape. Emmett Shear, the co-founder of Twitch who served as interim CEO throughout Altman’s ouster, was paid $3,720, in keeping with the submitting. Although Shear’s tenure appeared to final for about three days, the submitting mentioned he was paid from Nov. 19 to Nov. 29, which might be $338.18 per day, together with weekends.
The whole compensation might be a lot larger for some executives, nevertheless. The tax submitting doesn’t embody any equity-based compensation that OpenAI’s named officers might have obtained as the corporate’s valuation has soared. It additionally doesn’t disclose any exterior funding from enterprise capitalists into OpenAI’s for-profit entities.
There may be solely restricted visibility into OpenAI’s financials given the lag in reporting and the variety of firms which can be associated to its enterprise. The nonprofit lists a number of partnership firms and associated entities, together with Aestas LLC, which oversees worker and investor fairness.
Based on the submitting, OpenAI’s nonprofit obtained $5 million in public contributions in 2023, however the supply of the funding wasn’t disclosed. The nonprofit ended 2023 with web property of greater than $21 million — a tiny sum in comparison with the $6.6 billion the corporate raised in October to assist its efforts to maintain constructing highly effective AI merchandise.
Final yr, OpenAI expanded its charitable giving past common primary earnings initiatives linked to Altman, in keeping with the submitting. It funded an ethics and journalism grant at New York College in addition to analysis into AI financial alternative by means of Atlanta-based nonprofit Operation Hope.
OpenAI additionally offered monetary assist for experiments “in setting up a democratic process for deciding what rules AI systems should follow,” the corporate mentioned. The grants went to US establishments resembling Harvard School, the College of Washington and the College of Michigan, together with a recipient in East Asia.
“As part of our charter, we’re committed to collaborating globally with research and policy institutions to address AGI’s challenges, and increased grants support this mission,” an OpenAI spokesperson mentioned in an announcement.
