Samuel Harris Altman (born April 22, 1985)[1] is an American entrepreneur, investor, and chief executive officer ofOpenAI since 2019.[2] He is considered one of the leading figures of theAI boom.[3][4][5]
Altman dropped out ofStanford University after two years and foundedLoopt, a mobilesocial networking service, raising more than $30million inventure capital. In 2011, Altman joinedY Combinator, astartup accelerator, and was its president from 2014 to 2019.[6] In 2019, he became CEO of OpenAI and oversaw the successful launch ofChatGPT in 2022.He was ousted from the role by the company's board in 2023 due to a lack of confidence in his leadership, but was reinstated five days later following significant backlash from employees and investors, after which a new board was formed.[4] He has served aschairman of clean energy companiesHelion Energy[7] andOklo (until April 2025).[8] As of July 2025, Altman's net worth is estimated atUS$1.8 billion.[9]
Early life and education
Samuel Harris Altman was born on April 22, 1985, inChicago toJewish parents:[10][11] Connie Gibstine, a dermatologist, and Jerry Altman, a real estate broker.[12] His paternal great-grandfather was born in the Polish city ofPłock.[13] Altman is the eldest of four siblings: Sam, Max, Jack, and Annie.[3] In 1989, the Altman family moved to Jerry's hometown ofClayton, Missouri.[14]
In 2005, at the age of 19,[20] Altman co-foundedLoopt,[21] a location-basedsocial networking mobile application. As CEO, he raised more thanUS$30 million inventure capital for the company, including an initial investment ofUS$5 million from Patrick Chung ofXfund and his team atNew Enterprise Associates, followed by investments fromSequoia Capital and Y Combinator.[22] In March 2012, after Loopt failed to gain significant user traction, the company was acquired by theGreen Dot Corporation for $43.4 million.[23]
Y Combinator
In 2011, Altman became a partner at startup acceleratorY Combinator (YC), initially working on a part-time basis.[24] In February 2014, he became president of YC.[25] Altman aimed to expand YC to fund 1,000 new companies per year and sought to broaden the types of companies funded, particularly focusing on "hard technology" startups.[26]
In October 2015, Altman was involved in expanding YC's scope. He contributed $10 million to the initial fund of Y Combinator Research, and announced YC Continuity, a fund to invest in maturing YC companies.[27][28][29] In September 2016, Altman's role at YC expanded to president of YC Group, which included Y Combinator and other units.[30]
In March 2019, YC announced Altman's transition from president to a less hands-on role aschairman of the board, allowing him to focus on OpenAI.[31][32] This decision came shortly after YC announced it would be moving its headquarters to San Francisco.[24] As of early 2020, he is no longer affiliated with YC.[33] It was later revealed that he had falsely claimed the board chair title (including inSEC filings), and that Y Combinator partners never approved his appointment.[34][35]
As of June 2024, Altman's investment portfolio includes stakes in over 400 companies, valued at aroundUS$2.8 billion. Some of these investments intersect with companies doing business with OpenAI, which has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest. OpenAI's chairman of the board,Bret Taylor, maintained that Altman has been transparent about his investments.[36]
In April 2012, Altman co-founded Hydrazine Capital with his brother, Jack Altman.[37][38] The initial $21 million fund included a large part of the $5 million he got from selling Loopt, but most came fromPeter Thiel, his mentor and main backer inSilicon Valley. Altman invested 75 percent of the money in Y-Combinator companies.[39][40] In 2023, when Hydrazine launched its fourth fund, theUniversity of Michiganendowment was the only outside investor. Its investments in Hydrazine were the largest the endowment has made.[41] Altman debuted on theBloomberg Billionaires Index in March 2024 with an estimated net worth of $2 billion, primarily from his venture capital funds related to Hydrazine Capital.[42]
Nancy Pelosi presenting Altman with the Ric Weiland Award in 2017
Altman has several other investments in companies includingHumane, which was developing a wearable AI-powered device; Retro Biosciences, a research company aiming to extend human life by 10 years;[47]Boom Technology, asupersonic airline developer;Cruise, a self-driving car company later acquired byGeneral Motors; and Helion Energy, an American fusion research company.[48]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic, Altman helped fund and create Project Covalence to help researchers rapidly launch clinical trials in partnership with TrialSpark, a clinical trial startup.[49] During the depositor run onSilicon Valley Bank in mid-March 2023, Altman provided capital to multiplestartups.[50] Altman invests in technology startups and nuclear energy companies. Some of his portfolio companies includeAirbnb,Stripe andRetro Biosciences.[47]
Along with Peter Thiel, Altman was an early seed investor in Minicircle, "a longevity biotech company focused on developing gene therapies to extend human lifespans."[51] He also invested in charter city projectsPróspera andPraxis,[52] which have gotten additional financial support from author and formerCoinbase CTOBalaji Srinivasan.[53] Both cities have been linked by various publications and journalists to the Network State movement.[54]
Reddit
For eight days in 2014, Altman was the CEO ofReddit, asocial media company, after CEOYishan Wong resigned.[55][56] On July 10, 2015, he announced the return ofSteve Huffman as CEO.[57] He remained on its board until 2022.[58] Altman invested in multiple rounds of funding for Reddit (in 2014, 2015, and 2021).[58][59] Prior to Reddit'sinitial public offering in 2024, Altman was listed as its third-largest shareholder, with around 9% ownership.[60]
Worldcoin
Orb-shaped iris scanners on display
In 2019, Altman co-founded the for-profit company Tools For Humanity.[61] The company promoted theWorldcoincryptocurrency and eye-scanning systems to provideproof of personhood and authentication.[62][63] However, it has engaged in deceptive marketing practices to drive sign-ups.[64][65] By 2023, Tools For Humanity had scanned two million people's eyes and raised $250 million from several investors, includingAndreessen Horowitz andSam Bankman-Fried.[66][61][67]
Kenya was one of the first countries to register WorldCoin. The promise of free money lead to rapid growth in Kenya until WorldCoin promotion was paused by regulators.[68] Citing legal concerns overbiometric data privacy and potential fraud concerns, regulators in France, the United Kingdom, Bavaria, South Korea, Spain, Portugal, and Hong Kong have investigated or suspended WorldCoin.[69] WorldCoin has never been offered in the United States and the company limits its disclosures due to regulatory scrutiny.[66]
Energy investments
Altman is chairman of the board forHelion Energy, a company focused on developingnuclear fusion.[70][71] He also invested inExowatt, a solar energy startup that aims to provide clean energy to data centers.[72]
In March 2021, Altman and investment banker Michael Klein co-founded AltC Acquisition Corp, aspecial-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), where he was also the CEO.[7][73] In May 2024, Oklo Inc. completed a merger with the SPAC to become a public company. Altman remained as chairman of Oklo following the merger[74] until stepping down in April 2025 to "avoid conflict of interest"[75] and "open up opportunities for future deals between OpenAI and Oklo."[76]
In 2018, Musk, a long-time personal friend of Altman's, resigned from his Board of Directors seat, citing "a potential futureconflict [of interest]" with his role as CEO ofTesla due toTesla's AI development for self-driving cars.[84][81] In February 2024, Musk sued OpenAI and Altman, alleging they broke the company's founding agreement by prioritizing profit over benefit to humanity.[85] OpenAI executives, including Altman, dismissed these claims in a blog post.[86] The post said that the startup received only $45million from Musk instead of his pledged $1billion, and that Musk proposed to merge it with Tesla.[87]
In March 2019, Altman left Y Combinator to focus full time as CEO of OpenAI.[88][2] OpenAI planned to spend $1 billion "within five years, and possibly much faster".[89] Altman stated that even a billion dollars may turn out to be insufficient, and that the lab may ultimately need "more capital than any non-profit has ever raised" to achieveartificial general intelligence (AGI).[90]
Release of ChatGPT
In December 2022, OpenAI received widespread media coverage after launching a free preview of ChatGPT, a new AIchatbot based on GPT-3.5. According to OpenAI, the preview received over a million signups within the first five days.[91] According to anonymous sources cited byReuters in December 2022, OpenAI Global, LLC was projecting $200 million of revenue in 2023 and $1 billion in revenue in 2024.[92]
Percentage of US adults who have ever used ChatGPT, according toPew Research. As of March 2025, 58% of those under 30 have used the chatbot.[93]
The emergence of the Chinese AI companyDeepSeek led major Chinese tech firms to embrace anopen-source strategy, intensifying competition with OpenAI. Altman acknowledged the uncertainty regarding U.S. government approval for AI cooperation with China, but emphasized the importance of fostering dialogue between technological leaders in both nations.[96]
On November 17, 2023, OpenAI's board, composed of researcherHelen Toner,Quora CEOAdam D'Angelo, AI governance advocate Tasha McCauley, and, most prominently in the firing, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientistIlya Sutskever, announced that they had made the decision to remove Altman as CEO and Greg Brockman from the board, both of whom were co-founders.[97] The announcement cited that Altman "was not consistently candid in his communications" in a public announcement on the OpenAI blog.[98][97] In response, Brockman resigned from his role as President of OpenAI.[99] The day after Altman was removed, the board discussed bringing him back to OpenAI.[100]
On November 20, Microsoft CEOSatya Nadella announced that Altman would be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team.[101] Two days later, OpenAI employees published anopen letter to the board threatening to leave OpenAI and join Microsoft, where all employees had been promised jobs, unless all board members step down and reinstate Altman as CEO. 505 employees initially signed, which later grew to over 700 out of 770 total employees.[102] This included Ilya Sutskever, who initially advocated for firing Altman, but then stated on Twitter "I regret my participation in the board's actions." Late in the night on November 20, OpenAI announced that they had reached an "agreement in principle" for Altman to return as CEO and Brockman to return as president.[103][104] On November 21, 2023, after continued negotiations, Altman and Brockman returned to the company in their prior roles along with a reconstructed board made up of new membersBret Taylor (as chairman) andLawrence Summers, with D'Angelo remaining.[105]
In May 2024, afterOpenAI's non-disparagement agreements were exposed, Altman was accused of lying when claiming to have been unaware of the equity cancellation provision for departing employees who don't sign the agreement.[106] Also in May, former board memberHelen Toner explained the board's rationale for firing Altman in November 2023. She stated that Altman had withheld information, for example by not informing the board in advance of ChatGPT's release and by not disclosing his ownership of OpenAI's startup fund. She also alleged that two executives in OpenAI had reported "psychological abuse" from Altman, and provided screenshots and documentation to support their claims. She said that many employees feared retaliation if they didn't support Altman, and that when Altman was Loopt's CEO, the management team asked twice to fire him for what they called "deceptive and chaotic behavior".[107][108]
Altman had contemplated running forgovernor of California in the2018 election, but later decided not to enter.[109] In 2018, Altman announced "the United Slate", a political project to improve U.S. housing and healthcare policy.[110] In 2019, Altman held a fundraiser at his home in San Francisco for 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and fellow tech entrepreneurAndrew Yang.[111] In May 2020, Altman donated $250,000 toAmerican Bridge 21st Century, asuper PAC supporting Democratic presidential candidateJoe Biden.[112]
Altman is a supporter ofland value taxation[113] and the payment ofuniversal basic income (UBI).[114] In 2021, he published a blog post titled "Moore's Law for Everything", which stated his belief that within ten years, AI could generate enough value to fund a UBI of $13,500 per year to every adult in the United States.[115] In 2024, he suggested a new kind of UBI called "universal basic compute" to give everyone a "slice" of ChatGPT's computing power.[114]
In 2023, Altman was involved in boosting RepresentativeDean Phillips as he prepareda challenge to President Joe Biden for theDemocratic nomination.[116][117] On November 18, 2024, San Francisco Mayor-ElectDaniel Lurie named him to his transition team.[118] In December 2024, it was reported that Altman would donate $1 million to the Inaugural Fund for PresidentDonald Trump.[119] Altman hosted a fundraiser in San Francisco on March 20, 2025, for SenatorMark Warner, a Democrat up forre-election in 2026 in Virginia.[116]
On July 4, 2025, Altman posted toX to share his political ideology, saying that he believed in "techno-capitalism" and found himself increasingly "politically homeless", criticizing theDemocratic Party for no longer encouraging a "culture of innovation and entrepreneurship".[120] In September 2025, Altman was interviewed byTucker Carlson. They talked about the death ofSuchir Balaji and whether ChatGPT should abide byAmerican values.[121]
Personal life
Altman has been avegetarian since childhood.[122] He is gay, and first disclosed his sexuality at the age of 17 in high school, where he spoke out after some students objected to aNational Coming Out Day speaker.[3][123][124] He dated Loopt co-founder Nick Sivo for nine years. They broke up shortly after the company was acquired in 2012.[123]
According to his biographerKeach Hagey, in 2015, Altman met his future husband Oliver Mulherin "in Peter Thiel's hot tub at 3 a.m." Mulherin was a computer science student at theUniversity of Melbourne at the time and later became an engineer. He worked on AI projects in Australia before moving to the U.S. to work for the dementia detection startup SPARK Neuro.[125] Altman married Mulherin in January 2024,[126] at their estate in Hawaii;[127] the pair also live in San Francisco'sRussian Hill neighborhood and often spend weekends inNapa, California.[124][128]
Altman and Mulherin committed to giving away most of their wealth by signingthe Giving Pledge in May 2024.[129] The couple has a son, born in 2025.[130]
In January 2025, Altman's sister Ann Altman filed a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by Altman in theU.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri inSt. Louis. The lawsuit alleges that the abuse started when Ann was aged three and Sam was 12.[132] Sam Altman, along with his mother Connie and younger brothers Max and Jack, issued a joint statement denying the allegations, describing them as "utterly untrue".[133][134][135]
Altman has also served on the board of three Hongkong- and Singapore-basedSPAC companies named Bridgetown (sponsored byThiel Capital andRichard Li's Pacific Century) alongsideMatt Danzeisen, chairman of the SPACs and spouse of Thiel.[136][137][138] Like Danzeisen, he was mentioned as a friend in Thiel's circle byBuzz Feed News in 2017.[139] He has thanked Danzeisen for contributing to his essays on development of AI and China.[140][141] It was at a birthday party which Thiel organized for Danzeisen ("on a balmy mid-November evening" in 2023) that Thiel warned Altman that half of Altman's subordinates atOpenAI, who had supposedly been "programmed" byEliezer Yudkowsky, wanted to remove Altman.[142][143][144]
References
Sources
Hagey, Keach (2025).The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future. W. W. Norton & Company.ISBN978-1-324-07596-7.
^Chapman, Glenn; Bachner, Michael; Magid, Jacob; Ben-David, Ricky; Schneider, Tal; Magid, Jacob; Bachner, Michael; Sharon, Jeremy (May 17, 2023)."Sam Altman: The quick, deep thinker leading OpenAI".The Times of Israel.Archived from the original on June 1, 2023. RetrievedNovember 24, 2023.
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