Key Points:
- Sam Altman denied rumors that the $100 billion Nvidia partnership is failing.
- Executives accused Elon Musk of hiding evidence before the upcoming April trial.
- The company insists it still prioritizes scientific research over selling products.
- Rival firm Anthropic attacked OpenAI’s ad policy in a new Super Bowl commercial.
It has been a chaotic week for OpenAI. Just days before the Super Bowl, CEO Sam Altman and his top executives took to social media to defend the company on multiple fronts. From broken partnerships to legal battles, the leadership team tried to shut down what Altman called a “crazy hurricane” of negative narratives swirling around the startup.
The biggest fire they had to put out involved Nvidia. Recent reports suggested that OpenAI’s massive $100 billion partnership with the chipmaker was “on ice” or that the company was unhappy with the hardware.
Altman quickly rejected these claims. He posted that they love working with Nvidia and plan to remain a “gigantic customer” for a long time. Sachin Katti, a top engineer at OpenAI, backed this up by calling the relationship “foundational” and not just a simple vendor deal.
The company also traded blows with Elon Musk. The billionaire is suing OpenAI for breach of contract, with a trial scheduled for April. Altman joked online that he is “excited” to get Musk under oath. Meanwhile, Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon accused Musk of hiding evidence. He claimed Musk uses disappearing message apps like Signal to delete the truth, calling the lawsuit frivolous.
Internally, the company faced criticism that it cares more about selling products than doing science. This comes after several researchers left the firm. Mark Chen, the Chief Research Officer, pushed back hard. He stated that the majority of their computing power still goes toward basic research rather than just chasing product milestones.
Finally, a public feud erupted with rival company Anthropic. Anthropic released a Super Bowl ad mocking OpenAI for putting advertisements inside ChatGPT. The ad boasted that their own chatbot, Claude, would remain ad-free. Altman called the commercial “clearly dishonest.” He argued that OpenAI would never run ads the way the commercial depicted and noted that they have to support a much larger base of free users than their competitor.
