Sam Altman Clarifies on OpenAI’s ‘Tension’ With Microsoft (and Elon Musk)

OpenAI and Microsoft (MSFT)’s multibillion-dollar partnership is one of the most significant and envied in A.I. But, despite its mutually beneficial rewards, the relationship between the two tech players has been occasionally strained by the rapid pace of A.I.’s development, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “I will not pretend there are no misalignments or challenges, obviously there are some,” conceded Altman yesterday (Dec. 4) during The New York Times’ Dealbook Summit, where he also discussed his company’s ongoing issues with rival Elon Musk and hinted at OpenAI’s progress towards more advanced forms of A.I.

Recent reports suggest that OpenAI and Microsoft’s five-year bromance has grown tense as Altman’s company appeals for increasingly more computing power. While Altman pushed back against speculations that their partnership will unwind, he noted that there are “at various times, real compute crunches” within his company. “There’s not ‘no tension,’ but on the whole our incentives are really aligned.”

Someone Altman undoubtedly does have tension with, however, is Musk. One of OpenAI’s original co-founders, Musk is currently suing OpenAI for allegedly backtracking on its founding mission and has since launched his own A.I. startup, xAI, to challenge OpenAI’s dominance. The state of their relationship is “tremendously sad,” according to Altman.

“I grew up with Elon as a mega hero, I thought what Elon was doing was absolutely incredible for the world,” he said. “I have different feelings about it now, but I’m still glad he exists.”

If Altman is worried about how Musk’s new government efficiency role and increasingly strong ties to President-elect Donald Trump could impact the future of his company, he isn’t showing it.  “It would be profoundly un-American to use political power to the degree that Elon has it to hurt your own competitors and advantage your own businesses,” he said. “I don’t think people would tolerate it; I don’t think Elon would do it.”

Despite concerns in the tech circle regarding a potential plateau of A.I. model progression, Altman is unsurprisingly optimistic about the technology’s pace of development. “I expect that in 2025, we will have systems that people look at—even people who are skeptical of current progress—and say, ‘wow, I did not expect that,'” said the CEO. Like most tech leaders, he’s particularly excited about the recent pivot to A.I. agents, which Altman believes will likely dominate the next year of A.I.

OpenAI’s overarching goal is to achieve a form of A.I. known as artificial general intelligence (A.G.I.) that matches or even exceeds human capabilities. This benchmark will be met sooner than most people expect, according to Altman, who predicted its initial economic impacts will be uneventful but eventually lead to major industry changes and, inevitably, job turnover. “I expect the economic disruption to take a little longer than what people think, but then to be more intense than what people think.”