OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s critics have long said that he’s unreliable and can’t be trusted, and they’ve got some new ammo.
A day after Sam Altman had written a long post on X clarifying OpenAI’s stance on seeking government protection for its datacenter investments, and categorically saying that they didn’t want government guarantees for datacenters, X users have found an OpenAI document published 10 days ago in which the company appears to be asking for government guarantees for AI datacenters.
The document, which is hosted on OpenAI’s website, is addressed to Michael Kratsios, Executive Director of the US’ Office of Science and Technology Policy. The 11-page document covers a host of issues, but there were two points which caught the attention of X users. OpenAI first appears to include AI servers and AI datacenters as a part of US manufacturing by making them eligible for tax credits. In the next paragraph, OpenAI advocates for “loan guarantees” for US manufacturing, which could be read as a request for loan guarantees for AI datacenter investments.
Here are the relevant parts from the document (emphasis added)
Expand tax credits that accelerate American manufacturing. The Administration has already
taken critical steps to strengthen American manufacturing by extending the Advanced
Manufacturing Investment Credit (AMIC) for semiconductor fabrication. OSTP should now
double down on this approach and work with Congress to further extend eligibility to the
semiconductor manufacturing supply chain; grid components like transformers and specialized
steel for their production; AI server production; and AI data centers. Broadening coverage of the
AMIC will lower the effective cost of capital, de-risk early investment, and unlock private capital
to help alleviate bottlenecks and accelerate the AI build in the US.
Counter the PRC by de-risking US manufacturing expansion. To provide manufacturers with the
certainty and capital they need to scale production quickly, the federal government should also
deploy grants, cost-sharing agreements, loans, or loan guarantees to expand industrial base
capacity and resilience. This financial support would help counter the PRC, especially in
instances where it is distorting the market, such as in copper, aluminum, electrical steel, rare
earth elements, and semiconductor inputs. Direct funding could also help shorten lead times for
critical grid components—transformers, HVDC converters, switchgear, and cables—from years
to months. Initial investments could be made using existing authorities such as the Defense
Production Act Title III and the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office.Just yesterday, Sam Altman had said that OpenAI wasn’t looking for loan guarantees for its AI datacenters in a long-winded post on X. “I would like to clarify a few things. First, the obvious one: 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 or otherwise lose in the market. If one company fails, other companies will do good work,” he had said.
“What we do think might make sense is governments building (and owning) their own AI infrastructure, but then the upside of that should flow to the government as well. We can imagine a world where governments decide to offtake a lot of computing power and get to decide how to use it, and it may make sense to provide lower cost of capital to do so. Building a strategic national reserve of computing power makes a lot of sense. But this should be for the government’s benefit, not the benefit of private companies,” he had added.
While there could be nuance in what OpenAI said — it doesn’t explicitly ask for loan guarantees for datacenters — that didn’t stop X from attacking Sam Altman. Gary Marcus, one of OpenAI’s biggest critics, said that it was another example of Altman not being trustworthy. “You cannot trust this man, ever,” he said. “Sam Lied to everyone, again,” wrote another X account, and got over 1,300 reposts.
Sam Altman has been criticized by many for lying and not being trustworthy. His co-founders in OpenAI, Mira Murati and Ilya Sutskever, had sought to oust him from the company for misleading the board, and he was only saved by an employee revolt. Another OpenAI co-founder, Elon Musk, has long maintained that Altman isn’t trustworthy, giving him the moniker “Scam Altman”, and saying that AI shouldn’t be in the hands of someone who can’t be trusted. And with his cloud of not being honest already hanging over him, Altman can ill-afford mixed messaging between his own posts and the documents OpenAI puts out on its website.