They were originally founded as a non-profit that would ensure open and equal access to advanced AI, so it wouldn't be locked up in the hands of a few corporations.

And then they realized there was a lot of money to be made, and switched to a for-profit: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/11/openai-shifts-from-nonprof...

Now they lock up their most successful advancements, under the guise that if they released things for free they would be abused... but then their results are replicated and released for free by others, and we see there's no meaningful abuse (e.g. unstoppable spam).

They still do amazing research, and publish lots of papers, but that's a pre-req for them to hold on to their talent.