Sam Altman's outside bets raise fresh conflict questions as OpenAI nears IPO

As OpenAI moves closer to a public listing reportedly valued at around $850 billion, questions around chief executive Sam Altman's personal investments and how they intersect with the company's decisions are resurfacing, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The concerns date back to Altman's brief ouster in November 2023, when the board said he had not been "consistently candid" in his communications. Directors at the time were uneasy about how little they knew about his startup portfolio and whether it created conflicts with OpenAI's business. Some of those who voted to remove him felt the absence of proper disclosures made it impossible to assess how he might personally gain from deals he was striking on the company's behalf, the Journal reported.

While a reconstituted board later introduced tighter conflict-management policies and an audit committee, the details of those safeguards were never made public.

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Sam Altman's portfolio concerns

The issue has persisted as OpenAI grows. Altman, who built a portfolio during his time at Y Combinator, has stakes in hundreds of startups, some of which have since struck deals with OpenAI. That portfolio is comparable in scale to a large venture firm.

He has also pledged startup shares as collateral on a line of credit with JPMorgan, which he has used to fund further investments, the report said. Unlike many tech leaders whose wealth is concentrated in shares of the companies they run, Altman holds no direct equity in OpenAI and earned a salary of $66,000 in 2024.

"I'm doing this because I love it," Altman said at a 2023 Senate hearing.

That structure, rooted in OpenAI's nonprofit origins, makes his financial interests harder to track. Public company boards typically restrict outside investments for top executives and align incentives through equity-based compensation. In Altman's case, much of his wealth is tied to external ventures, raising questions about whether decisions at OpenAI could indirectly benefit him.

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Helion deal tensions

Recent internal discussions have sharpened those concerns. Altman proposed that OpenAI participate in a major funding round for Helion, a nuclear fusion startup where he has been a shareholder since 2014 and where a significant portion of his net worth is tied up.

The proposal came as Helion was falling behind on earlier commitments to demonstrate a breakthrough in energy generation and was running low on cash. The funding round was expected to reach $1 billion, and Altman proposed OpenAI commit roughly $500 million, a deal that would have valued Helion at around $35 billion, more than six times its previous valuation. That would have substantially increased the worth of Altman's stake.

Altman reportedly also approached SoftBank, which was finalising a $40 billion investment in OpenAI at the time, and asked it to back Helion as well. SoftBank chief executive Masayoshi Son handled the resulting deal personally, in a move that caught some staff at the Japanese investment group off guard, the WSJ report said.

Altman was recused from formal decision-making on Helion, but his push for OpenAI to invest made some employees uneasy. Staff who reviewed the proposal had doubts about the viability of Helion's technology. Some avoided a dedicated internal channel set up to discuss the potential deal, concerned that their communications could become evidence in future legal proceedings, according to the Journal.

OpenAI ultimately declined to invest. However, it struck a separate agreement giving it the right to purchase up to 50 gigawatts of power from Helion by 2035, the equivalent output of roughly 25 Hoover Dams. Helion has since cited that contract in conversations with prospective investors as it continues fundraising, a process that would further lift the value of Altman's holding.

Without OpenAI's participation in the round, Helion has scaled back its target to $250 million at a $15 billion valuation. Thrive Capital, a firm closely associated with Altman, is expected to lead the round. It is worth noting that Altman stepped down from Helion's board last month.

Space bet questions

Altman's interests extend beyond energy. Last summer, he approached rocket-maker Stoke Space about a possible tie-up with OpenAI, proposing that the company either acquire Stoke or take a controlling stake. The pitch included building data centres in space, a move that would have put him in direct competition with Elon Musk.

Altman's husband had invested in Stoke through Hydrazine, their family office, a financial connection that had not previously been reported, the report said. After enquiries were made about the discussions, people close to OpenAI said the talks were no longer active.

Earlier in February, Altman described the concept of space-based data centres as "ridiculous" during the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, a characterisation that surprised some involved in the negotiations.

Separately, OpenAI announced in January that it was backing Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup Altman helped establish as a rival to Musk's Neuralink. The two companies said they would collaborate on AI development. Altman sits on the Merge Labs board but holds no equity in the company.

Leadership strains show

These moves come at a time when OpenAI is facing intensifying competition and internal calls to refocus. Fidji Simo, the company's top product executive, told staff last month that Anthropic's growing success should be treated as a warning and pushed teams to concentrate on products built for professional and enterprise users.

Simo, who joined OpenAI last August after experiencing a relapse of a neuroimmune condition, went on medical leave this month, leaving a leadership gap at a critical juncture. In a note to staff, she named four executives to cover her responsibilities during her absence. Altman was not among them. The company said he was focused on research, fundraising and securing computing capacity.

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IPO test ahead

Despite the concerns, OpenAI's leadership and major investors continue to back Altman. Board chair Bret Taylor said, "I have the good fortune to see every day why Sam is so uniquely qualified to be leading this company as we move into our next chapters."

Yet some shareholders have privately begun to question whether he is the right person to lead the company through a public listing, and have floated Taylor himself as a potential successor, the Journal said.

Altman has openly admitted he has mixed feelings about the transition. "Am I excited to be a public-company CEO? Zero percent," he said on a podcast in December. "Am I excited for OpenAI to be a public company? In some ways I am, and in some ways I think it'd be really annoying."