The California Attorney General's office reported an unprecedented surge in mail volume this week after prominent tech CEOs collectively discovered their passion for corporate governance ethics. The influx of letters about OpenAI's non-profit conversion has forced the office to requisition additional filing cabinets and create a special task force just to sort submissions from newly-created organizations like "The Institute for Competition Fairness" and "Americans for Rival Company Accountability."
"I've never seen anything like it," said postal worker Dave Martinez, wheeling in his fourth cart of overnight deliveries. "Though I did notice they all used Wilson Sonsini Petroleum & Ethics for their letterhead design."
The phenomenon reached new heights when multiple tech giants launched charitable initiatives within hours of submitting their complaints. One social media giant announced a "Principles Before Profits" program at 9:03 AM, exactly three minutes after their letter was timestamped.
A leaked Slack message from one company's PR team captured the frantic atmosphere: "Need synonyms for 'deeply troubled' ASAP - we've used it 47 times and legal says it's starting to look suspicious." The same company was spotted filing trademarks for "Ethically Sourced Profits" and "Sustainable Revenue Acceleration" later that afternoon.
The coordinated concern reached its peak at an emergency "Ethics in Tech" symposium hosted at the Four Seasons Palo Alto. The event featured panels such as "Maintaining Moral High Ground While Maximizing Market Share" and "Turning Competitor Missteps Into PR Wins."
While Meta and Twitter's former CEO expressed legitimate worries about OpenAI's structural changes, industry observers couldn't help but notice the timing coincided perfectly with OpenAI's chatbot outperforming their own AI offerings.
When reached for comment, one CEO's office responded with a pre-written statement about their commitment to transparency, followed by an automated reminder that their own company's history of aggressive acquisitions and data collection practices was "a completely different situation" and "not relevant to the current discussion."
The AG's office is now accepting ethics complaints through their new automated chatbot, which sources say was coincidentally developed by OpenAI.
