Who Will Own the New OpenAI, in One Chart

One question has loomed over OpenAI investors for years: How would they generate a return on their investment? The ChatGPT maker is a nonprofit that capped the potential returns of early backers in its for-profit arm, such as Khosla Ventures and Microsoft, and would prevent the newer investors including Thrive Capital and SoftBank from reaping major gains unless the for-profit arm was restructured.

As the chart below shows, the company’s planned restructuring—which Microsoft and two state attorneys general still need to approve—would give all those shareholders traditional corporate equity stakes with a theoretically limitless upside.