Sam Altman, chief executive officer of OpenAI Inc., during a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025.
Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took subtle swipes at rival Anthropic on Thursday and said he thinks it's "bad for society" if companies start abandoning their commitment to the democratic process because "some people don't like the person or people currently in charge."
"The government is supposed to be more powerful than private companies," Altman said during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference.
Anthropic has clashed with the Department of Defense in recent weeks over how the agency can use its artificial intelligence models. Negotiations escalated, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared Anthropic a "Supply-Chain Risk to National Security" in a post on X on Friday.
President Donald Trump also directed every federal agency in the U.S. to "immediately cease" all use of Anthropic's technology.
Hours later, Altman announced that OpenAI had formed its own agreement with the DoD. The company has faced criticism for announcing the deal so soon after Anthropic was blacklisted, and Altman conceded that it looked "looked opportunistic and sloppy."
He said Thursday that the company's intention was to de-escalate the situation.
"It is complicated, we are busy with other things," Altman said. "But last week, when things started to get into a fight, it became increasingly clear to us that there was a chance things were going to go very badly."
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, and it exploded into the mainstream following the launch of its chatbot ChatGPT in 2022. The company has ballooned into one of the fastest growing commercial enterprises on the planet since then, and it announced a $110 billion funding round at a $730 billion pre-money valuation last week.
As of February, ChatGPT supports more than 900 million weekly active users, up from 800 million in October. But the company is engaged in a fierce competition with rivals like Anthropic and Google as they race to win even more users and market share.
--CNBC's Kate Rooney contributed to this report
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