That wasn't my take - it was more broadly a 'given past statements and accompanying behaviour, we can't trust future statements to align with future behaviour'.
Can you more explicitly describe what the X and Y points you allude to are?
Every “6 months ago I said this!” added little to the article. In a real investigative report it would lay out the facts and fairly objectively state “6 months ago, Sam Altman was accused of …”
The article as a whole just seems libelous? Almost personal?
Gary Marcus has been writing a piece like this roughly every 2 months for 20 years, and he gets a lot of attention because he seems respectable (he is not), and many papers are looking for a respectable source that has this opinion.
The crux of the article was altman trying to get a bailout, and when people called him on his bullshit, lying thay he never wanted a bailout. You cant trust the man
It looks like the actual crux was Altman's plea that the backtops be granted... Not to OpenAI? The document linkedfrom the article that had the actual ask, rather than cleanup over deliberate misatributions by others, was to... "Extend eligibility", for the AMIC money already carved out, to companies that are producers of things such as "grid components such as transformers and specialized steel".
So: Altman did not ask for OpenAI loans to be guaranteed, nor did the CFO. It was on behalf of others drawn into the needs of the industry the AMIC grant was supposed to support. Self interested by OpenAI? Sure! And also not about to make the top 10k leaderboard for "sleezy things companies do".
There was also some woman (maybe a high up exec, I don't know their full roster) in one of those live audience interviews saying they were looking towards a government backstop on the loans. They know they have no way of ponying up 1.4T. That's an insane amount of money. Honestly if more investing and startups were "we have x front-runners, if he dies he dies" I think we'd be in s better spot. Maybe don't invest in capturing-helium-in-a-colander.ai just because it ends in "AI"
You can criticize OpenAI for many things but this was blatantly misquoted.
They were talking about backstops for chips, to get fabs constructed in the US. If anyone else said this, it would have been considered a great idea, both republicans and democrats talked about the same thing to get TSMC production into the US, but everyone pretended that OpenAI was talking about data centers in this context. They weren't/
My goodness is there a huge difference between TSMC and OpenAI. TSMC moving to the US is a benefit to all US fabless companies and fabless companies that want to do business in any sensitive US industry, and they have an incredible track record as an industry leader. Open AI's chip manufacturing is much more risky and much less payoff. I wouldn't want the government to pay a penny towards it. Especially because an estimated cost for a leading edge chip is maybe $500 million. If they can commit to $1.4T, they can do it on their own. It's almost an omen they don't feel comfortable spending that without a guarantor.
The "I don't need to answer your simple questions on profit and loss statements" sentiment was odd. Likely odd enough to spur institutional investors to dig deeper or attract short interest.
That agro response to a perfectly reasonable question, "if you don't want your shares, we'll find you a buyer" instantly reminded me of that Bernie Madoff movie.
All of Sam’s shenanigans go back to that one popular post on here many months ago about how AI has no moat. LLMs are a commodity, Chinese companies are just releasing them for free. Sam has gone all in on OpenAI and needs to secure his company, he knows it could be another decade until they discover an innovation on par with tranformers and there’s absolutely no way they can go from burning tens of billions of dollars a year to profitable by selling a rapidly commoditized technology.
They are going all in, promising so many deals to so many companies that if OpenAI fails, the entire US economy will explode. Expecting the government will bail them out to prevent such a disaster.
Absolutely nothing. They don't, they didn't, it's a poorly stitched together attack job.
The 1.4 T amounts to a broad nearly decade long capex plan, not liabilities.
The loans and backstops etc were a request, not for OpenAI, but on behalf of manufacturers of grid equipment, manufacturers that OpenAI wouldike the government to consider as eligible for money already carved out by the AMIC national investment in chips and AI, and also probably more money as well-- it's a separate group of tangential industries that weren't initially considered, so why not ask? Sure it would help keep the wheels moving in OpenAI and the broad AI and US semiconductor industry, but it's far away from and ask by Altman for a bailout of his company.
I'm confused about language, as "loans" to me do not equal "bailout". The equating of the two seems odd, as many government incentives use loans that pay back with high interest, so governments MAKE money on those kinds of deals.
Also clear that the 1.4T figure includes some accounting for spend that does not come directly from OpenAI (grid/power/data infra for example). Obviously some government involvement is needed, but more at EPA/State/Local level to fast track construction permits, more-so than financial help from Treasury.
I'm confused why this generates such sensational headlines.
I'm with you on that - people use the wrong terms. Bailouts are supporting things like GM or failing banks because the government is worried about GM workers losing jobs or bank depositors losing money.
Altman's 1.4T isn't like that - it's a proposed new investment in stuff that doesn't exist yet and there would be no job losses or the like if it fails to exist. They have been talking about potential government support for the new ventures, partly to keep up with China which uses similar government support. I'm not sure if it's a good idea but it would not be a bailout, more a subsidy.
This is the same kind of bullshit rationalization they used to say that the bank bailouts of 2009 weren't really bank bailouts.
They were bank bailouts.
Unsecured government loans are either bailouts, entitlements in disguise, or (usually misguided) attempts at broad economic stimulus. This definitely isn't either of the latter two.
He posts some variant of this kind of anti AI piece roughly every two months for over 20 years. He's been wrong so far. Eventually he'll get lucky, but his track record is abysmal.
Gary is a bit of a stopped clock that always says the same time and is right occasionally. His basic position is these neural network things are not much good, they won't do whatever the current claim is.
Readit News
I don’t see any particular contradiction. Moving fabs onshore is absolutely in the interest of both parties.
Can you more explicitly describe what the X and Y points you allude to are?
The article as a whole just seems libelous? Almost personal?
Last time I checked Nouriel was partying up in the Hamptons so being a permabear is lucrative.
So: Altman did not ask for OpenAI loans to be guaranteed, nor did the CFO. It was on behalf of others drawn into the needs of the industry the AMIC grant was supposed to support. Self interested by OpenAI? Sure! And also not about to make the top 10k leaderboard for "sleezy things companies do".
They were talking about backstops for chips, to get fabs constructed in the US. If anyone else said this, it would have been considered a great idea, both republicans and democrats talked about the same thing to get TSMC production into the US, but everyone pretended that OpenAI was talking about data centers in this context. They weren't/
https://entropytown.com/articles/2025-11-06-openai-cfo/
"If you want to sell your shares, I'll find you a buyer." OpenAI and Microsoft Detail Landmark Partnership, Navigate Future of AI and Compute
https://founderboat.com/interviews/2025-11-01-openai-sam-sat...
Crazy sequences in a week...
ChatGpt is also building other products/brands like Sora to capture more mindshare.
Linux is free and yet people use Windows.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/repor...
https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/negotiation-skills-daily/w...
Capital denial to competitors.
I don't buy that they can create AGI by investing trillions in training models and infrastructure.
If you ask me, this is just more money spent on pollution.
The need to replace humans to be profitable, just sounds like the end goal is to destroy the planet with datacenters and hurt people generally.
Sounds like a net negative for the planet.
The 1.4 T amounts to a broad nearly decade long capex plan, not liabilities.
The loans and backstops etc were a request, not for OpenAI, but on behalf of manufacturers of grid equipment, manufacturers that OpenAI wouldike the government to consider as eligible for money already carved out by the AMIC national investment in chips and AI, and also probably more money as well-- it's a separate group of tangential industries that weren't initially considered, so why not ask? Sure it would help keep the wheels moving in OpenAI and the broad AI and US semiconductor industry, but it's far away from and ask by Altman for a bailout of his company.
Also clear that the 1.4T figure includes some accounting for spend that does not come directly from OpenAI (grid/power/data infra for example). Obviously some government involvement is needed, but more at EPA/State/Local level to fast track construction permits, more-so than financial help from Treasury.
I'm confused why this generates such sensational headlines.
Altman's 1.4T isn't like that - it's a proposed new investment in stuff that doesn't exist yet and there would be no job losses or the like if it fails to exist. They have been talking about potential government support for the new ventures, partly to keep up with China which uses similar government support. I'm not sure if it's a good idea but it would not be a bailout, more a subsidy.
They were bank bailouts.
Unsecured government loans are either bailouts, entitlements in disguise, or (usually misguided) attempts at broad economic stimulus. This definitely isn't either of the latter two.
A "bailout" is what happened in 2009, in the sense the banks would literally have collapsed without it (and they probably should have).
OpenAI is not going to collapse without these loans. Huge difference.
Also for the record, not rationalizing, because I'm not in favor of either handouts or bailouts.
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