Sam Altman Agrees OpenAI Should Fail 'If We Screw Up And Can't Fix It' After Rejecting Need For Government Guarantees

• CEO Sam Altman says OpenAI does not want government guarantees for its data center growth plans, following CFO Sarah Friar’s earlier comments suggesting the company was seeking support.
• OpenAI is well capitalized to meet those goals on its own, Altman says.
• He, however, suggested the U.S. should consider establishing a “national reserve of computing power.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the controversy over claims that the company expects government backing for its data center expansion, denying that any such plan exists.

Not Too Big To Fail

In a long post on X, Altman said, “We do not have or want government guarantees for OpenAI datacenters. We believe that governments should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions.”

He, however, proposed that the U.S. establish a “national reserve of computing power” — a sovereign AI infrastructure that the government could allocate and monetize as it sees fit.

Did OpenAI Ask For Government Support?

Earlier this week, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said at a conference that the company is "looking for an ecosystem of banks [and] private equity" to support its investment in AI infrastructure, and the government could "backstop the guarantee that allows the financing to happen."

Those comments sparked an uproar on social media, with some users questioning OpenAI's intentions and whether it was right for a private company to receive taxpayer money. "No,” the government should "not bail out big technology companies,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in an X post.

Altman defended, saying that OpenAI has the resources to meet its ambitious AI expenditure goals, which would ultimately cost about $1.4 trillion. “We expect to end this year above $20 billion in annualized revenue run rate and grow to hundreds of billions by 2030,” he said.

“Obviously, this (the AI investments) requires continued revenue growth, and each doubling is a lot of work! But we are feeling good about our prospects there.”

Free Markets Would Ensure Innovation 

Speaking of free markets, he said, if OpenAI fails, other companies will continue to advance the AI field, and the economy and ecosystem will be fine. “That’s how capitalism works.”

That said, Altman used the post to underscore the view that AI compute demand will only rise. "Everything we currently see suggests that the world is going to need a great deal more computing power than what we are already planning for."

In recent months, OpenAI has struck multi-billion dollar deals with Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon, and Oracle for cloud capacity and chips. It is also eyeing a public listing, which could be one of the biggest IPOs ever.

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