We’re only a week away from 2025, but OpenAI is already facing a tough year. Here’s everything that went wrong for the influential company in the past seven days, and a quick look at the potential frustrations and headwinds it faces as it heads into the new year.
Sam Altman’s sister is suing him
Annie Altman, sister of the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, He filed a lawsuit against the executive branchHe was accused of sexual assault. The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on Monday, alleges that Altman abused his sister when she was 3 and he was 12. “Following the previous acts of sexual abuse, Annie suffered ‘severe emotional distress, mental distress, and depression, which is expected to continue into the future.’” The lawsuit seeks damages in excess of $75,000, as well as a jury trial.
Allegations of abuse have been circulating on the Internet for more than a year and have gained ground for the first time Mainstream interest In the days after Altman was controversially fired from OpenAI (he would later be reinstated). Clearly, litigation has pushed the claims to a much broader audience. If the case goes to trial, it could be disastrous for OpenAI from a public relations perspective.
Altman family Issue a statement Wednesday response to Annie’s lawsuit. “All of these allegations are completely untrue,” the statement read. “This situation is causing extreme pain to our entire family. It is especially painful when she refused conventional treatment and lashed out at family members who are sincerely trying to help. The statement, which Altman shared on X, also describes Annie as mentally ill and financially motivated. It states that although The family has supported Annie financially for years, but she “keeps asking them for more money.”
The family of a former employee accuses the company of murder
In recent weeks, the company has also been hit by conspiracy theories alleging that it murdered a former employee. Susheer Balaji’s death on November 26 aroused immediate suspicion, although the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an investigation. The death was called suicide. This is because in the months before his death, Balaji had served as a whistleblower for the company, claiming that the company was violating US copyright law. Balaji wrote a few weeks before his death Online article In which he claimed to show that the company’s approach to content creation did not fall under this approach US definition of “fair use”.
While the police said there was “no evidence of foul play” in Balaji’s case, his family claimed that he was killed by OpenAI and demanded that the CBI investigate his death. In an interview with the San Francisco Standard, the Balaji family Move it They “believed their son was killed at the behest of OpenAI and other AI companies. “It’s a $100 billion industry, and his testimony could be turned upside down,” said Purnima Ramarao, his mother. “It could be a group of people involved, or a group of companies, or an entire association.” The coroner’s autopsy has not yet been released to the public.
The Cybertruck attacker allegedly used ChatGPT to plan his attack
Furthermore, it was recently learned that the man who blew himself up in a cyber truck outside Trump Tower used ChatGPT to plan the attack. Las Vegas Police recently revealed details to reporters in Press conference on Tuesday. “This is the first incident that I am aware of on US soil where ChatGPT was used to help an individual build a specific device,” said Las Vegas Mayor Kevin McMahill. “It’s a worrying moment.” It’s not something OpenAI wants to include in its advertising copy (“Useful for planning terrorist attacks!” doesn’t have much appeal).
Political headwinds
Not only is OpenAI facing a slew of bizarre and sensational scandals, it’s also facing the political realities of a second Trump presidency. Elon Musk, the company’s former founder (and investor) turned worst enemy, significantly helped Trump win, and now has unparalleled access to the levers of federal government power. At the same time as being dubbed “America’s co-president,” Musk is also waging a legal war against OpenAI, which, despite OpenAI calling it “frivolous,” shows no signs of going anywhere.
The lawsuit filed by Musk last year alleges that the company betrayed its original mission in favor of pursuing a for-profit business model (OpenAI Recently announced It would be getting rid of that Original and exotic structure to pursue a more traditional business strategy). When we last checked on this litigation effort last November, Musk had expanded the lawsuit to include other entities close to OpenAI, including its backer Microsoft.
At the same time, while Musk is embroiled in the legal battle, and may be able to manipulate federal policy in ways that could be devastating for OpenAI, he could also leverage the soft power of his media platform, X, to damage the company’s reputation. . In fact, Musk and his affiliates have exploited some of OpenAI’s recent controversies, publicly spreading harmful conspiracy theories. The Standard reports that after Susheer Balaji’s death, Musk and others close to him helped spread conspiracy theories surrounding the programmer’s death: “When Ramarao (Balaji’s mother) tweeted about hiring a private investigator, Musk responded: ‘This doesn’t sound like suicide.’
The Charged Economics of OpenAI
The biggest dilemma facing OpenAI may be less political than economic. This means that the massive amounts of money being used to support the company has left many onlookers wondering: is OpenAI’s business model even sustainable? Last year, the company announced this It lost about $5 billion While getting much less money than revenue. OpenAI has claimed that its revenue will grow to about $11 billion by the end of this year and will continue to grow significantly in the coming years.
In fact, OpenAI has claimed that its revenue will reach $100 billion by 2029 – just four years from now. Certainly, OpenAI, as a company, has grown incredibly quickly (its revenue jumped 1,700% within a year, the New York Times reported ). And I mentioned), although skeptics still view its forecasts as public relations fantasies designed to attract perpetual cash infusions from venture capital’s true believers. Blogger Ed Zitron, who He pointed to OpenAI As an “unsustainable, unprofitable and directionless company,” he notes that the company’s estimates of its future revenue capacity are “absolutely ridiculous.” Strongly representing the skeptic camp, Zitron wrote:
…The company says it expects to make $11.6 billion in 2025 and $100 billion by 2029, a statement so egregious that I’m surprised it’s not some kind of financial crime to say it out loud. For some context, Microsoft makes about $250 billion a year, Google about $300 billion a year, and Apple about $400 billion a year. To be completely clear, OpenAI currently spends $2.35 to earn $1.
Zitron notes that OpenAI appears to generate the majority of its revenue from subscriptions to ChatGPT, which doesn’t appear to be making enough money to offset its ongoing losses. OpenAI also makes money by licensing the use of its algorithmic models for use in software products. In the current situation, it does not matter if its revenues increase if the cost of providing the service remains very high. Sure, that could drive up prices, but OpenAI has competitors with deep pockets and similar standards.
In short: OpenAI has its work cut out for it. Facing powerful opponents, ongoing lawsuits, and looming scandals that could be disastrous to the company’s brand, the company needs to prove that The media hype it caused Over the past few years that can actually translate into cool dollars and cents. It is unclear, at this point at least, how it will do that.