OpenAI Replaces Its 2018 Charter Tone With Five Looser Principles, Hours Before the Musk Trial Opens
Sam Altman published a five-principle framework for OpenAI on April 26, dropping the 2018 charter's pledge to step aside for a safer competitor and reframing the company as AI infrastructure for humanity, just before jury selection in Elon Musk's $134 billion lawsuit.
Overview
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman published a new five-principle framework for the company on Sunday, April 26, 2026, the most prominent restatement of its mission since the 2018 Charter. The document, titled simply “Our principles”, organizes the lab’s stated commitments around democratization, empowerment, universal prosperity, resilience, and adaptability. It arrived roughly twelve hours before jury selection began in Elon Musk’s lawsuit accusing Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman of betraying OpenAI’s founding mission.
The new framework does not formally retire the 2018 Charter, but it changes the language, the priorities, and at least one explicit promise that safety researchers had spent years citing.
What We Know
The principles, posted on OpenAI’s site, are presented as the company’s view of how artificial intelligence should be built and shared. According to the official page, OpenAI says it wants to “resist the potential of this technology to consolidate power in the hands of the few” and to ensure that key decisions about AI “are made via democratic processes… not just made by AI labs.” The empowerment principle states that “AI can empower everyone to achieve their goals, learn more, be happier and more fulfilled, and pursue their dreams.” Universal prosperity is described as the rationale for OpenAI’s compute build-out, vertical integration, and worldwide data-center push. Resilience commits the company to collaboration with companies, governments, and other actors on biosecurity and cyber risk. Adaptability pledges transparency about “when, how, and why” the principles change as the technology evolves.
Euronews reports that the 2026 document deprioritizes artificial general intelligence as the central organizing concept of OpenAI’s mission. Where the 2018 charter framed the company around building AGI “safely and beneficially,” the new principles describe AGI as one element of a broader rollout of AI across society. Euronews also notes that Altman explicitly invoked Tolkien imagery, warning that the future could either see power held by a handful of companies or “held in a decentralized way by people.”
The most concrete change is the removal of what was sometimes called OpenAI’s “merge-and-assist” pledge. The 2018 charter committed the company to stop competing and start helping a value-aligned, safety-focused project that came within roughly two years of building AGI. According to Euronews, the 2026 document removes that pledge, with OpenAI now describing itself as “a much larger force” and committing instead to being transparent about how its principles change. The new framework also leans heavily on cooperation with governments and international agencies on alignment, safety, and societal problems before advancing further, replacing some of the binding language of the earlier charter with broader recommendations.
The timing is inseparable from the courtroom. Al Jazeera reports that jury selection in Musk v. Altman began Monday, April 28, 2026, in Oakland, California, before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Musk accuses Altman and Brockman of keeping him “in the dark” about their plans and exploiting his name and early funding to build what his complaint calls a “wealth machine.” According to Al Jazeera, OpenAI started as a nonprofit in 2015, primarily funded by Musk, before its restructuring into a for-profit entity now valued at $852 billion — a valuation previously reported by The Machine Herald when OpenAI closed a record $122 billion funding round at the start of the month. OpenAI characterizes the lawsuit as unfounded retaliation aimed at hindering its expansion while advancing Musk’s competing xAI venture.
What We Don’t Know
It is not clear from the published document whether the 2018 Charter will eventually be archived, kept as a historical statement, or formally rescinded. OpenAI has said the new principles do not replace the older Charter, but the company has not detailed how the two texts will be reconciled where they conflict — particularly on the merge-and-assist commitment, which appears in one document and not the other.
The practical effect of the democratization principle is also uncertain. The text calls for democratic processes around AI decisions but does not specify which institutions, jurisdictions, or oversight bodies OpenAI considers legitimate counterparties. Similarly, universal prosperity is framed in the document as a rationale for large-scale infrastructure investment, but the principles do not commit to specific revenue-sharing, redistribution, or access mechanisms.
Finally, neither OpenAI nor Al Jazeera has indicated whether the new principles will be entered as evidence or referenced during the Musk trial. According to Fortune, the trial is “scheduled to run for four weeks, with both Altman and Musk testifying, as well as other power players like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella expected on the stand.” How a jury weighs a brand-new mission statement against a six-year-old charter is one of the questions that will play out in Oakland over the coming weeks.