Conversation

Sam Altman’s greatest challenge has been the company’s dependence on investors.

OpenAI raised over $13 billion from Microsoft in return for an exclusive deal to purchase its computing power from the tech giant.

But OpenAI wanted even more computing power.

In late 2023, as Mr. Altman was negotiating with Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella,
to build $100 billion in new data center infrastructure
— a project that was already called “Stargate”
— the OpenAI board of directors unexpectedly fired him.

He was reinstated five days later, but Mr. Nadella was spooked and decided not to put in the money for Stargate.

Mr. Altman needed another way to build Stargate,
according to two people familiar with the Microsoft negotiations.

Mr. Altman had been discussing possible investments with SoftBank and Mr. Son.

The two men met at OpenAI’s offices earlier in the summer of 2024.

After Microsoft agreed to an exception in its exclusive contract with OpenAI,
the start-up signed a $10 billion data center deal with Oracle and pushed for something much bigger.

As Oracle built a new data center campus in Abilene, Texas,
Mr. Altman hoped to expand this into the $100 billion project he and Mr. Nadella had envisioned months earlier.

But the Biden administration had expressed concern over OpenAI’s efforts to secure additional money from investors in the Middle East.

And potential investors worried that the government would be slow to provide approvals for a project that required enormous amounts of land and electricity.

The sentiment surrounding the deal changed after Trump was elected.

Over the next several weeks, SoftBank, Oracle, and OpenAI each agreed to put money into Stargate, said three people familiar with the negotiations.

They also secured funding from MGX, a tech investment firm controlled by the United Arab Emirates.

As the inauguration approached, many of Mr. Altman’s A.I. rivals met with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla.

This included Mr. Musk and Mr. Zuckerberg, who has been giving away Meta’s A.I. technology in an effort to devalue OpenAI’s technology.

The best Mr. Altman could do was a meeting in Palm Beach outside of Mar-a-Lago with Howard Lutnick,
Mr. Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

After donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund,
Mr. Altman was invited to the inaugural festivities.

But a mutual acquaintance
(it is not clear who)
arranged Mr. Altman’s Friday afternoon phone call with the president-elect.

⭐️On Inauguration Day, Mr. Altman, Mr. Ellison and Mr. Son were at the Capitol Building ceremony
but were largely overlooked by the public.

Early the next day, they gathered in a suite of the five-star Riggs hotel in Washington to map out how they would unveil their partnership to the world.

As they nibbled on cold cuts and fruit, they tried to put the draft of a blog post on a screen hanging on the wall.

At first, they couldn’t get the screen to work.

Then Mr. Altman, the youngest of the three, got it working.

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