OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, about five minutes after arriving at the annual Sun Valley Conference, told reporters why he ditched the Democratic Party and is now referring to himself as “politically homeless.” He also shared his thoughts on Meta and its boss, Mark Zuckerberg, recently poaching several of his employees.
Altman, while talking to reporters in front of the Sun Valley Resort on Tuesday said he ditched the Democratic party, after having been a member for a “long time.”
“I don’t generally feel represented by the sort of mainstream Democrats anymore,” Altman said. “I am a believer in technology and science and economic growth … I think that I’m all for, like, offering great services, and I’m all for figuring out ways to make capitalism super inclusive.”
He continued: “But I think part of the thing has got to be like, we drive the country towards very significant economic growth. And I think we should lead the world in that, and I would love a party that pushes for that.”
The OpenAI boss also shrugged off a question about the “battle for talent with Mark Zuckerberg and Meta,” saying he felt “fine” and “good” about it. The 40-year-old behind ChatGPT added he had not seen Zuckerberg yet, but was “looking forward” to bumping into him at the conference for the tech, media and business elite.
Meta recently poached four top OpenAI researchers and spent big bucks to make it happen, offering up to $100 million in first-year pay for employees to switch sides.
Altman downplayed Meta’s hirings, saying the company “didn’t get [OpenAI’s] top people and had to go quite far down their list,” in an internal memo obtained by Wired; Altman added he found Meta’s poaching was “somewhat distasteful.”
But Altman does not find it too distasteful, it appears, considering OpenAI also just poached a handful of engineers from Meta and Elon Musk’s AI company.
Altman’s political comments about feeling “politically homeless,” from the Democrats are related to new left-wing politicians like Zohran Mamdani being critical of capitalism and billionaires as a whole. OpenAI earlier this year partnered with Oracle and SoftBank to spend up to $500 billion on the Trump Administration’s “Stargate” AI program.
Do not expect him to campaign for his rival’s new political party anytime soon, though; Altman told reporters the only thing he knows about Musk’s “America Party” is the name of it.
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