OpenAI is the most valuable private company in the world with a valuation of $500 billion. Its CEO, however, believes that there are times he wishes it were public — but not for the reason you’d expect.
In a candid moment during a podcast conversation with investor Brad Gerstner, Sam Altman revealed his frustration with critics questioning OpenAI’s massive capital expenditure plans. When pressed about market concerns over how a company with billions in revenue could justify $1.4 trillion in spending commitments, Altman’s response was pointed: he’d welcome the chance to watch skeptics lose money shorting OpenAI’s stock.
“First of all, we’re doing well, more revenue than that,” Altman shot back when Gerstner raised the concerns. “Second of all, Brad, if you want to sell your shares, I’ll find you a buyer. I think there’s a lot of people who would love to buy OpenAI shares.”
He continued, taking direct aim at critics on social media: “People who talk with a lot of breathless concern about our compute stuff or whatever would be thrilled to buy shares. So I think we could sell your shares or anybody else’s to some of the people who are making the most noise on Twitter about this very quickly.”
Things threatened to get awkward, but Altman then laid out OpenAI’s growth strategy, emphasizing that revenue is already growing steeply and explaining the company’s forward-looking bets. “We are taking a forward bet that it’s going to continue to grow and that not only will ChatGPT keep growing, but we will be able to become one of the important AI clouds, that our consumer device business will be a significant and important thing, that AI that can automate science will create huge value.”
But it was his comments about going public that revealed his combative stance toward doubters. “There are not many times that I want to be a public company, but one of the rare times it’s appealing is when those people are writing these ridiculous ‘OpenAI’s about to go out of business’ and whatever. I would love to tell them they could just short the stock, and I would love to see them get burned on that.”
Altman acknowledged the risks inherent in OpenAI’s strategy while defending the company’s planning: “We carefully plan, we understand where the technology, where the capability’s going to grow and how the products we can build around that and the revenue we can generate. We might screw it up — this is the bet that we’re making and we’re taking a risk along with that.”
Altman’s comments come at a pivotal moment for OpenAI as the company navigates its transformation from a nonprofit research lab to a for-profit entity while managing extraordinary capital requirements for AI infrastructure. The $1.4 trillion figure Gerstner referenced appears to align with recent reports of OpenAI’s ambitious datacenter buildout plans, including the proposed Stargate project — a $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative announced in partnership with SoftBank and Oracle. The tension Altman expressed reflects a broader debate in Silicon Valley about whether AI companies’ massive spending on compute infrastructure will generate commensurate returns. And while many founders don’t take kindly to short sellers — Elon Musk has battled short sellers, and even feuded will Bill Gates because he’d shorted Tesla’s stock, it does seem unusual for a private company CEO to want his company to go private for the express purpose of causing financial harm to his detractors.