As someone who is the Treasurer/Secretary of a 501(c)(3) non-profit I can tell you that is it always possible for a non-profit to bring in more revenue than it costs to run the non-profit. You can also pay salaries to people out of your revenue. The IRS has a bunch of educational material for non-profits[1], and a really good guide to maintaining your exemption [2].
The parent is, OpenAI Global, LLC is a for profit non-wholly-owned subsidiary with outside investors; there's also OpenAI LP, which is a for-profit limited partnership with the no profit as general partner, also with outside investors (I thought it was the predecessor of the LLC, but they both seem to have been formed in 2019 and still exist?) OpenAI has for years been a nonprofit shell around a for-profit firm.
Thanks for explaining the basic structure. It seems quite opaque and probably designed to be. It would be nice if someone can determine which entities he currently still has a position or equity in.
Since this news managed to crush HN's servers it's definitely a topic of significant interest.
Depends if you're talking about "OpenAI, Inc." (non-profit) or "OpenAI Global, LLC" (for profit corporation). They're both under the same umbrella corporation.