John,

I’m sitting here in a bit of shock, looking at a 13-page court subpoena I just received.

It’s from OpenAI’s lawyers, under authority from a US judge, and it "commands" us to hand over pretty much every single private email, document, note, chat, or anything else related to our campaign to protect the world’s most important tech non-profit.

This is huge. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has billions riding on its conversion from a non-profit to a for-profit. Its CEO, Sam Altman, plans to get filthy rich off his tax-subsidized company. And we’re maybe his biggest public opponent; we’re so effective on our shoestring budget that they think we’re funded by Elon Musk!

It’s laughable (have they seen our campaigns??) — but it’s still a huge threat. We urgently need to hire outstanding lawyers to go up against Big Tech’s best — even just fighting the subpoena will be costly.

Legal bullying to silence opposition is what these guys do. It’s how Big Tech is built. But we’re not backing down, because we exist to fight corporate bullies. So we’re turning this attack into determination.

Donate to help defend our work together, and let’s send OpenAI and the rest of Big Tech a message: if you come after us, you’ll only make us stronger.

I'll donate $3I'll donate $4 I'll donate $5I'll donate $9I'll donate another amount

Ultimately, this is happening because we’re beating OpenAI, badly. They wanted to sneak through this restructuring, privatize all the public money they built their company with, and laugh all the way to the bank. 

But our campaigning helped push the Attorney Generals of California and Delaware to tell them “not so fast”. And they had to scale back their plan, big time.

So they’re attacking us to undermine our credibility. They’re attacking us because they live in a bubble and can’t believe over 100,000 people around the world just don’t want them to build a dangerous AI company chasing profit over the common good.

Together we’re beating OpenAI out in the real world: can you help us beat them in court too and fund all Ekō’s work to fight corporate power?

I'll donate $3I'll donate $4 I'll donate $5I'll donate $9I'll donate another amount

Your donation will help power Ekō and our campaigns worldwide fighting for people and the planet. Will you chip in?