Why OpenAI went into crisis PR mode Thursday (www.cnn.com)

OpenAI triggered a public relations scramble after CFO Sarah Friar suggested the U.S. government should “backstop” financing for the company’s massive chip and data-center buildout, implicitly asking taxpayers to underwrite part of the roughly $1.4 trillion infrastructure commitment. Friar quickly walked back the remark on LinkedIn, saying OpenAI wasn’t seeking a government guarantee; CEO Sam Altman then reinforced that stance on X, insisting OpenAI “does not have or want government guarantees” while touting $20 billion in expected revenue this year and ambitions for “hundreds of billions” by 2030. The episode matters because it exposed growing investor and policy unease about how a private, privately valued (~$500B) company is funding unprecedented demand for GPUs, servers and data centers—spending that has ripple effects across hardware suppliers (Nvidia, AMD), cloud providers (Amazon) and markets. Technically, the headline number ($1.4T) signals enormous ongoing capital intensity for AI scaling, and raises questions about systemic exposure if a major player stumbles. Altman suggested governments could instead invest in public data centers or chip fabs to protect national security, while political leaders from the Trump administration reiterated there will be no federal bailouts—underscoring a shift toward regulatory facilitation (permits, incentives) rather than direct corporate guarantees.