Sam Altman says he doesn’t want the government to bail out OpenAI if it fails (techcrunch.com)

OpenAI’s CFO Sarah Friar briefly suggested the company was exploring a U.S. government “backstop” for infrastructure loans to make massive chip and data-center financing cheaper, then quickly walked that comment back. CEO Sam Altman followed up decisively: OpenAI does not want government guarantees or taxpayer bailouts if it fails, arguing governments shouldn’t pick winners. The debate drew quick public pushback — including from former Trump adviser David Sacks — and clarified that while loan guarantees have been discussed for U.S. semiconductor fab buildouts more broadly, OpenAI hasn’t applied for such support. The exchange matters because OpenAI is planning roughly $1.4 trillion in commitments over the next eight years while running at about a $20 billion annualized revenue rate and projecting “hundreds of billions” by 2030. Financing matters for the AI stack: state-of-the-art chips require frequent refreshes, and backstopped loans would lower borrowing costs and raise loan-to-value, easing rapid hardware turnover. With government bailouts off the table, large AI infrastructure buildouts will lean on private capital, strategic partnerships, and policy moves that ease permitting and power — and may shape which firms can sustain the capital-intensive cadence of frontier model training and deployment.