Altman and Brockman's Cerebras Holdings Questioned, Over 60 Groups Petition California to Investigate OpenAI Self-Dealing

According to Insight Beating monitoring, the EyesOnOpenAI alliance, consisting of over 60 U.S. civil society and advocacy groups, submitted a joint letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, requesting an investigation into OpenAI and its executives for alleged "self-dealing" and conflicts of interest in related-party transactions. The joint letter highlighted that several senior executives, including CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, Director Adam D'Angelo, and co-founder Ilya Sutskever, held personal stakes in the semiconductor startup Cerebras Systems while driving OpenAI to sign procurement agreements with Cerebras worth up to billions of dollars. An OpenAI spokesperson responded that relevant interests were disclosed and reviewed for compliance through the company's internal conflict of interest disclosure and review process prior to the transactions being approved.

The direct leads to the related-party transaction allegations stem from testimony revealed in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI. Sworn testimony revealed that Brockman actively lobbied for business dealings between OpenAI and Cerebras while concealing his personal stake in Cerebras from Musk. The EyesOnOpenAI alliance alleged in the letter to the Attorney General that the executives' clandestine ownership and orchestration of massive transactions may have violated the California Charitable Trust law, particularly under Section 5233 of the California Corporations Code regarding self-dealing by nonprofit organization trustees. The alliance demanded that the Attorney General compel OpenAI to submit the full documents related to the Cerebras procurement contracts and conduct a comprehensive audit to ascertain whether OpenAI adequately followed conflict of interest disclosure and approval procedures internally.

Cerebras' valuation surged rapidly around its initial public offering (IPO), raising significant concerns about behind-the-scenes benefits in the procurement contracts. With expected purchase orders from clients like OpenAI, Cerebras priced its IPO on May 13, 2026, at $185 per share, raising $5.55 billion in funds and achieving a fully diluted valuation of $564.3 billion. On the first day of trading on May 14, Cerebras' opening price skyrocketed to $350, corresponding to a fully diluted valuation of $1.0675 trillion. The civil alliance believes that the core management of OpenAI, by leveraging procurement funds controlled by the nonprofit parent entity, objectively inflated the valuation of personal investment enterprises, sparking compliance controversies over converting public charitable assets into private wealth.