ChatGPT boss ‘turned enemy into friend’ with President Trump

When Elon Musk left the Trump administration, Sam Altman seized the opportunity to approach President Trump, going from being an opponent to becoming his friend.

Two weeks after Elon Musk parted ways with President Donald Trump, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT app, walked into the dining room at the White House owner’s golf club in New Jersey with a big smile.

Altman, 40, Musk’s biggest rival, had just finished a private meeting with President Trump and the two were about to have dinner with his top donors. The president introduced Altman to club members to thunderous applause, calling him “incredibly talented.”

“I hope he’s right about artificial intelligence (AI),” the president said.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and creator of ChatGPT, speaks at Tel Aviv University, Israel, in June 2023. Photo: Reuters

That warm meeting in June was a far cry from the cold reception Altman received in the first weeks after Trump’s election. Altman had distanced himself from Musk, who had co-founded OpenAI but had left the company. Musk’s status as Trump’s “most trusted confidant” kept Altman out of meetings at Mar-a-Lago.

During Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Capitol Hill, Altman had to sit in a side room, instead of sitting in the main row with other tech CEOs.

But Altman didn’t give up on his efforts to reach the president. He bided his time, quietly trying to outmaneuver Musk. He struck AI infrastructure deals that President Trump supported and avoided his old friend, who had sued OpenAI for allegedly betraying its mission.

Altman has cultivated a personal relationship with the president, dining with him at Mar-a-Lago in March and speaking occasionally by phone. A longtime Democrat who has been critical of Mr. Trump, Altman now tells associates he regrets his harsh words.

On July 4, Altman posted on X that he was no longer a Democrat, stressing that the party had shifted so far to the left that he had “no political standing.”

But it’s also an opportune time for Altman to change his political stance. Musk’s sudden departure from President Trump’s inner circle has given him the opportunity to gain government support for his massive global AI infrastructure effort, as well as influence AI regulations.

In another sign of Altman’s growing influence, he will be the keynote speaker at a conference hosted by the Federal Reserve in late July, presenting to bank executives the impact of AI on the economy.

“President Trump is doing big things for AI in the US and building the infrastructure we need to lead,” an OpenAI spokesperson said. “We look forward to continuing to work with him to grow our economy and ensure AI benefits everyone.”

Past confrontation

Altman’s rise to President Trump’s “AI right-hand man” is hard to believe. For a long time, he has donated almost exclusively to the Democratic Party, reflecting the progressive values of the high-tech industry where he works.

Altman endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 because “Donald Trump represents an unprecedented threat to America,” he wrote on his blog at the time, warning that a Trump presidency would “bring disaster to the American economy.”

Earlier that summer, Altman wrote another piece arguing that “Trump is right on some big issues,” like the economy. But he disagreed with how the Republican candidate proposed to address those issues.

“For anyone familiar with the history of 1930s Germany, watching Mr. Trump in action is terrifying,” Altman wrote.

But at the same time, he has grown increasingly concerned about Democrats’ economic policies. As President Joe Biden’s administration prepares to roll out a Covid-19 stimulus package, he has warned that the move will cause inflation and increase the national debt. Altman, however, remains a loyal Democrat, donating $200,000 to Biden’s 2023 re-election campaign.

Over time, Altman has also become disillusioned with the Biden administration’s AI policy. He believes the CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to bring chip manufacturing back to the U.S., is too small, with about $50 billion earmarked for semiconductor development and manufacturing.

The Biden administration’s restrictions on chip exports to countries where US adversaries like China can access them have hampered Altman’s years-long effort to build AI infrastructure in the Middle East and attract investment from the region.

Step by step approach

President Trump (left) and Altman at the White House on January 21. Photo: AFP

In the spring of 2024, Altman began courting Trump as part of a bipartisan outreach effort. Knowing that Trump favors winners, OpenAI positioned itself as a leader in AI, then dazzled him with its technology. The tactic worked, according to WSJ commentators .

In June 2024, OpenAI executives met with Mr. Trump at a Las Vegas hotel and demonstrated Sora, a text-to-video tool that had not yet been released but would later take Hollywood by storm.

They argued for the government to invest in AI infrastructure and remove regulations that hinder the AI industry from growing in order to beat China. Days later, Trump declared on a podcast that the US needed to “surpass China” in AI.

“We need more electricity than we’ve ever had before to develop AI at the highest level,” he stressed.

By the Republican National Convention in July, the need to build AI infrastructure had become a central part of his platform. A week later, Altman echoed this sentiment in an op-ed in the Washington Post, asserting that “infrastructure is key” in the US’s AI war with China or Russia.

When Trump won the election, Altman seemed to have a partner willing to meet his goals, if Musk hadn’t shown up. Musk had sued Altman at the time and was competing with OpenAI with his own company, xAI. Musk was also the president’s biggest donor and rarely left his side.

So while other tech CEOs could comfortably fly to Mar-a-Lago a few weeks after the election to meet with Mr. Trump, Altman had to work through intermediaries.

Recognizing the need for outside help, OpenAI hired Jeff Miller, an influential lobbyist and fundraiser in the MAGA movement, and Chris LaCivita, an adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign. Both introduced Altman to people close to the president. Altman also got help from Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, who has known Trump for years and is expanding his partnership with OpenAI.

Altman donated $1 million to the President’s inauguration, which got him a ticket to attend, but not in the main guest row.

The next day, he surprised Musk by standing in the Oval Office with the President to announce a $500 billion partnership between OpenAI, Oracle, and Japan’s SoftBank to build data centers to train and run AI models.

Musk, after learning the details of the deal, attacked it in a series of X posts, claiming that SoftBank could not afford the plan. Altman said Musk was completely wrong. Musk dug up an old tweet from Altman praising venture capitalist Reid Hoffman for preventing Trump from being re-elected in 2020.

The controversy was so heated that the President had to speak up.

“He hated one person in the deal,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about whether Musk’s criticism bothered him. “The people who were in the deal were very, very smart, but there was one person that Elon happened to hate. I don’t like certain people anyway.”

The message seems clear: The president won’t let Musk’s criticism get in the way of working with Altman.

Abu Dhabi Project

After taking office, Mr. Trump immediately implemented policies to promote infrastructure development that OpenAI had advocated for, including an executive order “Unleash American Energy” signed by the President on the first day of his term to speed up permitting for power projects.

When OpenAI held an AI conference in Washington on January 30, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum attended, and Kellyanne Conway, who served as a senior adviser to Mr. Trump during his first term and remains close to the White House, sat in the front row.

In March, Altman attended a dinner President Trump hosted for donors at Mar-a-Lago, where each attendee donated $1 million to his super PAC.

By May, OpenAI and the Trump administration were ready to announce the next step in their partnership with Oracle and SoftBank: a data center in Abu Dhabi.

Mr. Trump speaks to reporters on Air Force One after leaving Abu Dhabi in May. Photo: AFP

The deal was made possible by the Trump administration lifting chip export restrictions under former President Biden.

The deal includes plans to build a massive 5-gigawatt data center complex in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), to train and run AI models, in partnership with local tech firm G42.

Musk has previously built a relationship with Tahnoun bin Zayed, who controls G42 and whose MGX fund invests in both xAI and OpenAI.

On May 14, reporters traveling with the president were told that Trump and OpenAI would announce plans to build a data center in Abu Dhabi the following day. But when Musk learned that Altman was on a trip to the Middle East and would be standing next to the president and G42 leaders to announce the deal, he complained repeatedly to the president’s aides and people he had connections with at G42. The situation became so tense that Trump had to pull out of a meeting to resolve it.

G42, concerned about Musk’s backlash, decided to delay announcing the deal. Reporters were asked not to report it.

To appease Musk, the White House agreed that no U.S. government officials would be present at the announcement and that the news would be released only after President Trump’s trip to the Middle East had concluded. The deal was announced a week later, with less fanfare than originally planned.

The incident raised concerns among some senior White House staffers. Shortly after media reports on May 28 about Musk’s efforts to thwart the deal, he announced he was leaving the White House and began publicly criticizing President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Act,” then a bill.

Just a week after the Abu Dhabi deal, Musk’s relationship with President Trump fell apart.

For his part, Altman continues to deepen his ties with the administration. On June 16, OpenAI announced a $200 million contract with the Pentagon.

The Trump administration is expected to release its AI action plan later this month. OpenAI has been lobbying for the plan to include measures that make it easier to build AI infrastructure.

According to US media, the White House is considering granting federal land to technology companies to build data centers to train AI models.

“I believe in techno-capitalism,” Altman recently posted on X, explaining his decision to leave the Democratic Party. He envisioned a world in which people become richer through science, technology, and education, which would help the US maintain its global advantage.

“I believed that when I was 20, I believed that when I was 30, and I still believe that when I’m 40,” he said. “The Democratic Party seemed pretty aligned with that when I was 20, lost its way when I was 30, and has completely shifted in a different direction now.”

Altman does not identify himself as a Republican, but tells people he will probably vote Republican in the next election.