OpenAI Rejects $1 Million Prize Again from Justin Sun

OpenAI has once again refused to accept a $1 million prize from Justin Sun. The company was initially named as the winner of the Clay Mathematics Institute's $10 million Millennium Prize for solving the Navier-Stokes equations, but had previously declined to claim the same reward offered by the institute.

The prize relates to an AI solution to the Navier-Stokes equations, a fluid dynamics problem that mathematicians have struggled with for decades. Two researchers claimed their unpublished work was referenced in OpenAI's proof, which the company denied.

OpenAI revealed its 3D Navier-Stokes solution on September 8, stating that 10,000 AI agents worked for 88 hours to solve it, with GPT-6 Astra verifying the logic for an additional 17 hours. The Clay Mathematics Institute designated this problem as one of seven Millennium Prizes in 2000, but it remains listed as unresolved on their website.

OpenAI had previously stated it would not accept the Clay Institute's prize due to questions about the true origin of the proof. Meanwhile, Justin Sun later announced his own 'Justin Sun Prize' for the same problem, offering two separate awards: one for proving the solution and another for coding it into a formal format.

OpenAI was named as the first $10 million winner under Sun's prize structure, with credit given to their team. However, they have not yet claimed the award, despite meeting eligibility criteria. Sun's rules state that if a problem is already solved, the prize goes to whoever translates it into machine-verifiable proof, rather than the original solver.