Over 60 advocacy and civil society groups have banded together as the EyesOnOpenAI coalition to demand California Attorney General Rob Bonta investigate OpenAI and its top executives for alleged self-dealing and conflicts of interest. In a joint letter, the coalition claims that CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, board member Adam D'Angelo, and former co-founder Ilya Sutskever personally held equity in semiconductor startup Cerebras Systems while pushing OpenAI to sign billions of dollars in purchase agreements with the company. An OpenAI spokesperson countered that the relevant interests were properly disclosed and reviewed through the company's internal conflict review process before the deals were approved.
The self-dealing allegations trace back to sworn testimony disclosed in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI. According to that testimony, Brockman actively lobbied for OpenAI to do business with Cerebras while concealing his personal stake in the company from Musk. The EyesOnOpenAI letter argues that such conduct — executives secretly holding equity while steering massive contracts — may violate California's charitable trust law, specifically Section 5233 of the California Corporations Code, which prohibits self-dealing by nonprofit fiduciaries. The coalition is demanding the Attorney General force OpenAI to hand over the full Cerebras procurement contracts and conduct a comprehensive audit of OpenAI's internal conflict-of-interest disclosure and approval processes.
Cerebras' valuation skyrocketed around its initial public offering, drawing intense scrutiny to the potential conflicts behind the procurement deals. Riding on expected orders from clients including OpenAI, Cerebras priced its IPO on May 13, 2026 at $185 per share, raising $5.55 billion and giving it a fully diluted valuation of $56.43 billion. On its first trading day, May 14, Cerebras opened at $350 per share, pushing its fully diluted valuation to $106.75 billion. The coalition argues that OpenAI's core management effectively used procurement funds from the nonprofit parent to inflate the valuation of a company they personally invested in, raising serious questions about the conversion of public charitable assets into private wealth.