OpenAI sought government loan guarantees days before Sam Altman’s denial

OpenAI explicitly requested federal loan guarantees for AI infrastructure in an Oct. 27 letter to the White House — which graciously declined the offer, with AI czar David Sacks saying at least five other companies could take OpenAI’s place — directly contradicting CEO Sam Altman’s public statements claiming the company doesn’t want government support.

The 11-page letter, filed with the Office of Science and Technology Policy, called for expanding tax credits and deploying “grants, cost-sharing agreements, loans or loan guarantees to expand industrial base capacity” for AI data centers and network components. The letter details how “direct financing could also help reduce lead times for critical grid components (transformers, HVDC converters, switchgear and cables) from years to months.”

“Initial investments could be made using existing authorities, such as the Defense Production Act Title III and the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office,” OpenAI said.

Just ten days later, on November 6, Altman posted on

The contradiction emerged after OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told a Wall Street Journal on Nov. 5 that a federal “backstop” could help lower financing costs and increase debt capacity for AI infrastructure.

Her comments caused strong reactions. For example, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tweeted that the government should not bail out tech companies. Sacks wrote that “there will be no federal bailout for AI.”

Friar quickly responded to her comments on LinkedIn, saying OpenAI was not looking for a government backstop for infrastructure obligations.

“I want to clarify my comments earlier today. OpenAI is not looking for a government backstop for our infrastructure obligations. I used the word ‘backstop’ and that obscured the point,” she wrote. “As the full excerpt of my response shows, I made the point that American strength in technology will come from building real industrial capacity, which requires the private sector and government to play their roles.”

Altman’s lengthy X-post the next day reinforced this message. “Our CFO spoke about government funding yesterday and later clarified her point, underscoring that she could have phrased things more clearly. As mentioned above, we believe the US government should have a national strategy for its own AI infrastructure,” his tweet read.

Naturally, this move also caused a backlash.

AI researcher Gary Marcus published the Oct. 27 letter, calling Altman’s denial “mendacious” and noting that the letter explicitly asked for the loan guarantees that Altman claimed he did not want. The letter remains publicly available on OpenAI’s content delivery network.

This is not the first time Altman’s statements have come under scrutiny. OpenAI’s board briefly fired him in November 2023 for “not being consistently forthcoming,” the board’s statement said. Former board member Helen Toner later explained in a podcast how Altman had withheld information and made it difficult for the board to fulfill its oversight duties. A recent statement from former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who voted to remove Altman, further documented concerns about his outspokenness.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Oct. 27 letter or the apparent contradiction with Altman’s statements.