- CEO Sam Altman said OpenAI doesn’t want government guarantees or to become too big to fail.
- The company expects its annualized revenue run rate to top $20 billion by year’s end.
- Altman posted on X after CFO Sarah Friar clarified comments about a “government backstop.”
After OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar walked back comments about seeking a “government backstop” for its massive data center spend, CEO Sam Altman reiterated that the company does not “have or want” any government guarantees.
“We believe that governments should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions,” Altman wrote Thursday on X.
Altman added that the company is not trying to become “too big to fail.”
“If we get it wrong, that’s on us,” Altman wrote.
Altman echoed Friar’s explanation that AI is a “national strategic asset,” and he added that it makes sense for governments to build their own data centers.
As questions swirl around the slew of eye-popping compute deals OpenAI has forged in recent weeks, Altman addressed why the company is spending so much — to the tune of $1.4 trillion over the next eight years — and how it’s going to pay for it.
OpenAI expects to end the year with $20 billion in annualized revenue run rate, he wrote, a figure that could balloon to hundreds of billions by 2030. Enterprise offerings, consumer devices, and robotics will be “significant” revenue drivers, he wrote.
Finally, Altman addressed why the company is spending so much now, rather than growing more slowly. He said infrastructure takes time to build and underscored both the current demand and the urgency of the problems it aims to solve, such as curing diseases and achieving artificial general intelligence, which refers to AI being able to match or surpass human abilities.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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