The attorneys general of California and Delaware could challenge that 2019 IP transfer if they so wished on behalf of the public.
The issue is that they did R&D as a charity, donations to which are tax deductible, there may also be other benefits to being a charity during R&D but that’s a big one, then once the thing works, setup a for profit, sell ip at “fair value”, get some investment, then things are ready for business.
I read there’s no statute of limitations on a tax issue like this, so I guess it might be hanging over them indefinitely.
I’m not a big taxation and government fan, they’d probably just waste the money anyways. It does seem unfair OpenAI gets to use this loophole though, unless all companies can make their R&D investment tax deductible, and get any other benefits of this setup.
> Early Angels (Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, and others): Approximately $10 million invested, current value $1.4 billion. That corresponds to a return of around 140x.
If it had been a for-profit company contributing assets to another for-profit company, the transaction would not have had any different tax consequence.
(This is just a thought IANAL)