Sam Altman says he's 'politically homeless' in July 4 post bashing Democrats

14 pointsposted 17 hours ago
by tareqak
(cnbc.com)

22 Comments

clipsy

16 hours ago

This could've been moderately interesting if he'd bothered to elucidate exactly how the Democratic party has moved away from him, because as far as I can tell their policy platforms have not changed dramatically except on some social issues. The only thing I can come up with as speculation is that he's greatly overestimating the popularity of "The Squad" and a handful of other progressives based on social media presence rather than actually examining what the party has tried to accomplish in recent years.

(Ok, a more cynical speculation is that he's the one who has changed due to his enormous wealth, and he no longer actually aligns with the Democratic party of 20 years ago; but he'd never consider, let alone admit, such a thing.)

baobun

13 hours ago

I think it's just setup and prepositioning for the GPT-for-president arc.

smt88

15 hours ago

> exactly how the Democratic party has moved away from him

For a Very Online person like Altman (or me, for that matter), it's easy to assume everyone knows.

He's referring to the (very modest) Democratic turn against Silicon Valley. It started with the demonization of Meta and Twitter during Covid, and it's what caused Zuckerberg, A16z, and a lot of other newly-right tech people to become Republicans too.

For the record, I think Altman is deeply out of touch with normal people and it's always frustrating to hear billionaires cry about being bullied, but he does have a point that Democrats are no longer tech optimists in general.

salawat

15 hours ago

No one should be a tech optimist. Tech can't guarantee good outcomes. It's equally applicable to good and evil ends. The ones who blindly go forward disregarding the potential bloodbath down the road from their creation deserve to have ice water thrown on them by the adults in the room.

Fade_Dance

14 hours ago

One doesn't necessarily need to be blind to be an optimist. Optimist != zealot. And it's quite arguable that benefits of technological development outweigh the drawbacks in general.

Anecdotally, I've found recently it's more often than not the doomers who need the ice water thrown on them. That's usually where I'm hearing the incoherent zealot ranting style takes, and even in relatively "normal" circles like the art world there are many that basically want to shut the entire project down and are blind to the benefits.

clipsy

15 hours ago

I can't agree that holding tech companies to reasonable account is the same thing as abandoning tech optimism, especially given (eg) Biden's push to try to build fabs in the US, but I can certainly see how the fairly minor slight would send an out-of-touch billionaire into a conniption fit.

armchairhacker

15 hours ago

Politicians are out-of-touch. Altman is also out-of-touch but in a different way. (I'm probably also out-of-touch in yet another way. The average NYCer can't really understand the life of the average rural Texan and vice versa.)

More parties in the US would be great, but right now it doesn't look feasible. Maybe we can convince enough people to support a new party, or shrink government, if the alternative gets us too close to Civil War or governance is too unpredictable, which mutually hurts all Americans (and benefits China).

tareqak

17 hours ago

I used the title from https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/04/openai-altman-july-4-zohran-... and made it fit the word limit (“OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he’s ‘politically homeless’ in July 4 post bashing Democrats”).

PaulHoule

16 hours ago

If there was a neoliberal candidate who was halfway decent in the NYC race they could possible beat Mandami but as it is the anti-Mandami vote will be split between several competitors in the “who can be the biggest jerk?” primary. It’s a game Trump can win but nobody else.

Billionaires have to face up to taking an L once in a while. When you suppress the left to the extent that (in Germany) the SPD says “we can’t afford the welfare state” pretty soon the AfD is saying “… we can if we get rid of the migrants.”

Mandami is terrifying to those people because he’s a plain spoken person who talks to ordinary people about issues that they care about and doesn’t use weird words that scare away minorities and working class people. Guess what, billionaires can pay a little more tax and still… live their lives.

alganet

17 hours ago

> make everyone have the stuff billionaires have instead of how they are going to eliminate billionaires

It's the other way around. Billionaires lack something: the sense of working to get things. True sense of value. I want billionaires to acquire this precious feeling.

czbot

17 hours ago

There aren’t enough resources for 350 million people to live billionaires do. Sam Altman’s complaint is without merit and he knows this. It is wholly disingenuous of him to pretend otherwise.

wredcoll

13 hours ago

Literally the entire value of being a billionaire is having things other people don't. If you were content to, like, just have a life where all you needs are met, you could stop well short of a billion.

Finnucane

17 hours ago

Sam Altman's head seems to be firmly at home in his own ass.

dofubej

8 hours ago

Instead of the usual some other thing.

user

14 hours ago

[deleted]

archagon

9 hours ago

Tech CEO who gives millions to fascists and parties with the likes of Thiel and Yarvin moans about being politically homeless. Buddy, you definitely have a political home.

Trasmatta

17 hours ago

"Billionaire says he doesn't like the party that wants to eliminate billionaires"

labrador

17 hours ago

Ex-Democrat here (I'm politically homeless as well): That's actually incorrect, billionaires are fine as long as they pay taxes like they used to, say in the Eisenhower era in the 50's when the top rate was something like 91% on income over a few million. Back when we could afford to build the interstate highway system.

dns_snek

10 hours ago

A party that wants to eliminate billionaires? In the US? Is there a resurging socialist or communist party that I haven't heard about?