OpenAI - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

OpenAI is Medium Risk.

OpenAI is Medium Risk. The company often yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. The company elevates merit, excellence, and integrity ahead of race and identity-based policies. The company occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Medium Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	Lower Risk
Employment Protection	High Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	High Risk
Funding	Medium Risk
Political Actions	Lower Risk

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Open AI’s Political Campaigning Restrictions prohibits the use of its API and ChatGPT for active political campaigning, lobbying, targeted voter persuasion, or generating bulk campaign materials (1). In June 2026, OpenAI banned likely China-based accounts that were using ChatGPT to create and support coordinated social-media campaigns criticizing U.S. technology and trade policies and promoting narratives favorable to China. The activity included fake or inauthentic social-media accounts (2).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

OpenAI does not discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or beliefs (1)(2).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

In March 2024, a Christian Ministry “The Holy Sexuality Project” filed a discrimination lawsuit against OpenAI and its vetting partner, Goodstack, after being denied standard non-profit software discounts due to its traditional theological views. The lawsuit alleged religious and ideological discrimination. Following the legal filing and public pushback, OpenAI intervened, reversed the decision, and granted the ministry its non-profit status and platform discounts (1). OpenAI does not provide viewpoint protections for its employees (2)(3).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman is a member of the Business Roundtable, which supports stakeholder capitalism over traditional shareholder obligations (1). OpenAI supports DEI within its business practices. From its Commitment to DEI Webapage: “Our investment in diversity, equity, and inclusion is ongoing, executed through a wide range of initiatives, owned by everyone across the company, and championed and supported by leadership. We take this work seriously and are committed to continuously improving our work in creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization” (2). In 2025, the company rebranded its DEI commitment webpage as “Careers and Culture,” with a focus on building dynamic teams. The company appears to have materially changed its underlying corporate policies and practices by removing standard DEI terminology to align with its new commercial Public Benefit Corporation structure and shifting its hiring focus from diversity-based targets to technical merit (3)(4). In April 2026, America First Legal sent a letter to government officals requesting an investigation into Apple and OpenAI for an “anticompetitive arrangement that threatens free speech”. OpenAI’s product, ChatGPT, is the only AI chatbot accessible through core Apple features, “denying Americans meaningful choice and exposing them to a single, systematically biased AI voice that could twist American minds like no technology before” (5). In its 2024 Form 990 filing, the company removed the terms “safely” and “unconstrained by a need to generate financial return” from its primary mission statement. OpenAI’s updated mission statement reads “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.” (6)(7).

Criteria:

Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

OpenAI’s People-First AI Fund provided a grant to the Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance (1)(2). Otherwise, there are no publicly known cases of the company using corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies (3).

Criteria:

Uses corporate political actions and/or financial contributions for ideological, non-business purposes.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

OpenAI does not operate a PAC at this time and has not used its lobbying for ideological purposes (1)(2)(3).