The Wall Street Journal corrects Tech News Briefing after wrongly stating OpenAI had become a for-profit company

The Wall Street Journal has issued a correction to its Tech News Briefing podcast after an earlier version misreported OpenAI’s new structure, incorrectly stating that the company had converted to a fully for-profit model.

The October 28 episode, hosted by Julie Chang, reported that OpenAI “had become a for-profit company,” suggesting the artificial intelligence leader had abandoned its hybrid governance model. In reality, OpenAI’s nonprofit parent retains ownership of a controlling stake in its for-profit subsidiary, which has now been restructured as a public-benefit corporation — a legal category intended to balance profit-making with a social mission.

The WSJ correction, appended to both the podcast and its online transcript, clarified that:

“OpenAI’s nonprofit parent owns a stake in its for-profit subsidiary, which has become a public-benefit corporation. An earlier version of this podcast incorrectly said OpenAI had become a for-profit company.”

That distinction is crucial. Describing OpenAI as “for-profit” implied that the organisation had abandoned its founding charter’s public-interest commitments and would now operate like a conventional tech firm. In fact, the new structure is designed to preserve nonprofit oversight while allowing OpenAI to raise capital and pursue a potential public offering — a nuance lost in the initial phrasing.

The rest of the Tech Minute episode covered Nvidia’s NVQLink announcement, which merges AI supercomputing with quantum processing, and Eli Lilly’s partnership with Nvidia to build what they claim will be the most powerful pharmaceutical supercomputer.