The University of Michigan invested $20 million into ChatGPT’s creator OpenAI, according to legal documents filed in February of 2024, which alleged that CEO Sam Altman violated the company’s mission statement and prioritized profits over safety.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in February 2024. Musk was a co-founder and board member for OpenAI from December 2015 to February 2018. In the lawsuit filed, Musk alleged that Altman did not uphold the company’s original mission, which was to create a safe platform for open space artificial general intelligence for humanity’s benefit.
Musk motioned for a preliminary injunction to block OpenAI from changing its status from non-profit to for-profit. As of May 18, 2026, a federal jury unanimously voted to dismiss Musk’s case against Altman, finding that Musk filed beyond the statute of limitations.
Through a new endowment fund through U-M, which creates a lasting source of funding for the university. U-M partnered with OpenAI in March of 2025 to expand funding for grants that focus on how AI applications can be used. Their stake in the company is now expected to be worth $2 billion.
While it is unclear as to when the university invested, it appears to have been before companies like Microsoft, which invested in 2019, and are also named in the court documents.
As for how this may affect the University of Michigan-Flint, Jason Kosnoski, a professor of Sociology at UM-Flint and a member of the One University coalition, composed of faculty from all three universities, focused on improving inter-campus relations, said that faculty resolutions aim to clarify how AI is to be integrated across campuses.
“There’s certainly a push by certain offices in the university to get faculty to integrate AI into courses,” Kosnoski said. “I can’t speak for all faculty, but the faculty senate resolutions which have passed, where faculty are saying ‘we want to be very clear that we are the ones who choose what is best for teaching students.’”
The resolution regarding generative AI, voted on by chancellors, vice presidents and deans from all three campuses, which would ensure that faculty get a say in the development of generative AI on the university’s three campuses, passed on Nov. 3, 2025, by a vote of 2,666 yeses, 429 noes and 543 abstentions.
Both U-M and UM-Flint declined to comment, citing a desire not to reveal details about individual investors or investments.
Maxwell Loxton is a writer for the Michigan Times he can be reached at mloxton@umich.edu.
