Mozilla president Mark Surman is assembling a coalition of startups, developers and public-interest technologists to challenge the growing dominance of Big Tech in artificial intelligence, positioning the nonprofit as a counterweight to OpenAI and Anthropic, he told CNBC in an interview.
Surman, 56, leads Mozilla, the nonprofit best known for the Firefox browser and its long-standing mission to keep the internet open and accessible. His concern is not just technological progress, but the concentration of power shaping it. He is now building what he calls a “rebel alliance”—a loose coalition of startups, developers, and public-interest technologists committed to making AI more open, transparent, and trustworthy, while acting as a counterweight to AI giants.
Mozilla plans to deploy its roughly $1.4 billion in reserves to support mission-driven technology companies and nonprofits. The focus is on investments that promote accountability in AI systems and reduce reliance on a small number of dominant players.
Financially, Mozilla’s position is modest by comparison. The organisation launched Mozilla Ventures in 2022 with an initial $35 million commitment to early-stage companies and is now considering raising additional capital. This pales against OpenAI’s more than $60 billion in funding and Anthropic’s $30 billion-plus war chest, while tech giants such as Google and Meta are investing tens of billions annually in AI infrastructure.
Mozilla’s stance reflects growing unease within the AI community over OpenAI’s transformation. Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit lab focused on benefiting humanity, the company has since evolved into a for-profit enterprise with a valuation approaching $500 billion, driven largely by the success of ChatGPT.
Several former OpenAI employees have criticised what they see as a shift towards rapid commercial growth at the expense of safety. The company has also faced high-profile dissent from co-founder Elon Musk, now pursuing his own AI venture, xAI.
Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI researchers, has taken a more explicit safety-first stance, yet it too is expanding aggressively, with a valuation estimated at $350 billion.
Despite political and commercial headwinds, including a US administration keen to accelerate AI development to compete with China, Surman remains resolute. Mozilla, he said, aims to “do for AI what we did for the web”, proving that an alternative, built from many smaller, principled players, is both possible and necessary.
Today, investing in this rebel alliance sits at the core of Mozilla’s strategy. Mozilla Ventures has backed more than 55 companies so far, many of them AI-focused, with further investments planned this year.
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