A reusable TL;DR I can send people, instead of pasting all of this in the chats.
- 3 people donated their shares, making the foundation the primary shareholder of Proton:
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To achieve this goal, I, as Proton’s founder, joined together by Jason Stockman (Proton’s co-founder) and Dingchao Lu (Proton’s first employee), have jointly endowed the non-profit Proton Foundation through a donation of Proton shares. These transfers and commitments from the foundation founders make the Proton Foundation the primary shareholder of Proton
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- The mission can be preserved because of this:
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Swiss foundations and their board of trustees are legally obligated to act in accordance with the purpose for which they were established, which, in this case, is to defend Proton’s original mission. As the largest voting shareholder of Proton, no change of control can occur without the consent of the foundation, allowing it to block hostile takeovers of Proton, thereby ensuring permanent adherence to the mission.
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- The company still exists but can't act without the foundation's agreement:
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our services will continue to be offered through the for-profit Swiss corporation Proton AG, which now operates under the supervision of the non-profit foundation, which is its primary shareholder. This change in governance does not signal a shift in how our core businesses are run. Proton is not profit-driven, but we still must retain profitability as a core objective because a cornerstone of safeguarding Proton’s mission is independence through self-sustainability.
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- TIL: They give grants to FOSS projects:
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has given grants worth more than 2.7 million dollars to advance online freedom and democracy around the world. Organizations that have been funded include the Tor Project, the European Digital Rights network, GrapheneOS, and many others.
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