AI behemoth OpenAI tried to lay the groundwork for a taxpayer-funded bailout Wednesday and was met with swift condemnation.<\/p>\n
The Wall Street Journal published a story Sunday suggesting<\/a> that OpenAI has now become \u201ctoo big to fail<\/a>.\u201d In other words, if the company were to go under, it would be such a blow to the U.S. economy that the government would have to intervene and save it; otherwise, there might be a spiraling drain effect that sucks down the entire system. A domino effect from hell.<\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s CFO, Sarah Friar, seemed to test-pilot<\/a> the idea at a Wall Street Journal conference Wednesday, saying that the company wants to build up an ecosystem of banks, private equity groups, and a federal government \u201cbackstop\u201d or \u201cguarantee\u201d to help build and finance the crucial data centers<\/a>. (RELATED: Battle Against Data Centers Driving Up Electric Bills Unites Republicans, Democrats)<\/a><\/p>\n There was swift backlash on social media, however, which forced OpenAI to do some cleanup. Friar later clarified her comment, saying that the mention of a \u201cbackdrop\u201d muddied her point that \u201cAmerican strength in technology will come from building real industrial capacity which requires the private sector and government playing their part.\u201d<\/p>\n OpenAI wants federal taxpayer backstop for new investments, per Bloomberg.<\/p>\n CFO has clarified this was a \u201cmisspeak.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) November 6, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted a long statement Thursday on X, claiming they are not looking for \u201cgovernment guarantees,\u201d or a handout from Uncle Sam.<\/p>\n I would like to clarify a few things.<\/p>\n First, the obvious one: we do not have or want government guarantees for OpenAI datacenters. We believe that governments should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions or\u2026<\/p>\n \u2014 Sam Altman (@sama) November 6, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cFirst, the obvious one: we do not have or want government guarantees for OpenAI datacenters. We believe that governments should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions or otherwise lose in the market. If one company fails, other companies will do good work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sam just wrote a 1,500-word essay explaining why he absolutely doesn\u2019t want government guarantees\u2026 while outlining a $1.4 trillion moonshot that somehow needs them in spirit, if not on paper. It\u2019s performance art at this point. \ud83d\ude02<\/p>\n He\u2019s basically saying: \u2014 Void Freud (@voidfreud) November 6, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Altman went on to say that OpenAI has discussed government-subsidized loans to help build semiconductor factories in the U.S.<\/p>\n \u201cThe one area where we have discussed loan guarantees is as part of supporting the buildout of semiconductor fabs in the US, where we and other companies have responded to the government\u2019s call and where we would be happy to help (though we did not formally apply),\u201d Altman said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe basic idea there has been ensuring that the sourcing of the chip supply chain is as American as possible in order to bring jobs and industrialization back to the US, and to enhance the strategic position of the US with an independent supply chain, for the benefit of all American companies. This is of course different from governments guaranteeing private-benefit datacenter buildouts,\u201d he goes on.<\/p>\n White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks joined the mop-up, as well. (Sacks is essentially Silicon Valley\u2019s lobbying voice in the Trump White House.)<\/p>\n There will be no federal bailout for AI. The U.S. has at least 5 major frontier model companies. If one fails, others will take its place.<\/p>\n \u2014 David Sacks (@DavidSacks) November 6, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n But, if there were a real market meltdown soon, why should we take these people\u2019s statements that they don\u2019t want a guaranteed federal bailout as true at face value? Clearly, they have been mulling over the idea. And it would be much easier to finance a mass buildout of data centers if investors knew that the federal government and taxpayers would ultimately foot the bill. In other words, if they knew the risk and downside of the whole AI bubble blowing up in their faces was passed on to the public.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Altman recently got snappy<\/a> when Brad Gerstner, an American investor, dared to ask him how OpenAI is going to pay for $1.4 trillion of long-term spending commitments on hardware and data center infrastructure from 2025-2035, even though the company\u2019s revenue still is middling.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all. We\u2019re doing well more revenue than that. Second of all, Brad, if you want to sell your shares, I\u2019ll find you a buyer. I just, enough. I think there\u2019s a lot of people who would love to buy OpenAI shares. I think people who talk with a lot of breathless concern about our compute stuff or whatever, that would be thrilled to buy shares. So I think we could sell your shares or anybody else\u2019s to some of the people who are making the most noise on Twitter about this very quickly. We do plan for revenue to grow steeply. Revenue is growing steeply,\u201d Altman claimed.<\/p>\n Of course, the \u201cpeople who are making the most noise on Twitter about this\u201d just seem to be those with common sense, an ability to do basic math, and a growing skepticism that AI technology will actually be worth the investment. One MIT study found<\/a> that 95% of organizations that have tried to implement generative AI, like OpenAI\u2019s technology, ChatGPT, got zero in return. Another study from the Rand Corporation revealed<\/a> that 80% of AI implementations fail.<\/p>\n All of it is beginning to reek of \u2026\u00a0 \u2018Just give me more money, and this time, there will be a major breakthrough, and it will all be worth it. The best is yet to come!\u2019 I don\u2019t know exactly how many times Altman and other tech CEOs have said something to this effect over the years, but I know it\u2019s more than once.<\/p>\n And something of note: the famous investor who shorted the U.S. housing market ahead of the 08\/09 financial crisis, Michael Burry, now has a short position on tech behemoths Palantir and Nvidia. He\u2019s betting that these stocks are overvalued and will soon crash.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udea8 BREAKING: Michael Burry goes short on $PLTR<\/a> and $NVDA<\/a> in his latest 13F filing<\/p>\n Scion Capital just bought put options on 1M Nvidia shares and 5M Palantir shares \ud83d\udc40<\/p>\n The Big Short is feeling bearish on AI pic.twitter.com\/Kn6EcINm20<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Michael Burry Stock Tracker \u265f (@burrytracker) November 3, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want\u2026<\/p>\n