OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly denied on Thursday that his company is pursuing or requesting any kind of U.S. government bailout or guarantee, pushing back against growing speculation about OpenAI’s finances as it continues to invest heavily in AI infrastructure.

In a detailed post on X (formerly Twitter), Altman said, “We believe that governments should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad decisions or otherwise lose in the market.” His comments followed remarks from OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar that sparked confusion over whether the company was seeking a form of government “backstop” to support its massive data center expansion.

A Misunderstanding Over “Backstop”

The controversy began after Friar told the Wall Street Journal Tech Live conference that OpenAI was exploring an “ecosystem” of banks, private equity, and potential government guarantees to help finance the advanced semiconductor chips required for AI model training and deployment.

In a follow-up LinkedIn post, Friar clarified her remarks, saying that her use of the term “backstop” had “muddled” the message. She explained that her point was about collaboration between the private sector and government to strengthen U.S. industrial capacity, not to seek financial protection or subsidies for OpenAI.

White House officials quickly addressed the issue. David Sacks, the Biden administration’s AI policy advisor, wrote on X that there would be “no federal bailouts for AI.”

Altman echoed that position, emphasizing that OpenAI has not applied for any government financial assistance, but confirmed that it has discussed the possibility of loan guarantees related to domestic semiconductor manufacturing — a broader policy initiative designed to bolster U.S. chipmaking rather than to benefit any single company.

Mounting Capital Demands for AI Infrastructure

The clarification comes amid increasing scrutiny of OpenAI’s financial sustainability. The company is scaling its data center footprint to power advanced AI systems like GPT-5 and to maintain its leadership in the race for generative AI dominance.

Altman disclosed that OpenAI currently faces $1.4 trillion in spending commitments over the next eight years, primarily tied to infrastructure, chip procurement, and energy costs. While the company expects to close the year with a $20 billion annualized revenue run rate, analysts warn that this figure is still far short of covering its long-term capital requirements.

“Obviously this requires continued revenue growth, and each doubling is a lot of work,” Altman wrote. “But we are feeling good about our prospects — we’re quite excited about our upcoming enterprise offering, and new categories like consumer devices and robotics.”

He also hinted that OpenAI may explore direct sales of computing capacity to third-party firms, as well as potential equity raises and debt financing, as part of its broader funding strategy.

Analyst Concerns About Profitability

Despite Altman’s optimism, analysts remain cautious. Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research, said the biggest question surrounding OpenAI is how it plans to fund its exponential growth trajectory.

“The big question that’s still hanging over everybody’s head is how does a company like OpenAI — which says it’s going to spend $1.4 trillion while losing billions of dollars a quarter — possibly pay for that?” O’Donnell told Yahoo Finance. “They’ve got to start generating some serious income, and that’s the part that has people kind of nervous.”

The remarks reflect a broader unease across Silicon Valley and Wall Street about the sustainability of AI economics. While demand for large-scale language models and enterprise AI tools continues to surge, the costs of compute, energy, and data center capacity are rising even faster.

OpenAI’s Next Steps

Altman remains defiant about OpenAI’s position and its long-term vision. In response to questions about liquidity and solvency on the Bg2 podcast, Altman bristled, saying he wished OpenAI were public so skeptics could “short the stock and get burned.”

For now, OpenAI’s focus appears to be on expanding its enterprise offerings and developing new AI applications that can drive meaningful revenue streams beyond its consumer-facing products like ChatGPT. The company is also exploring AI applications in scientific discovery and robotics, areas Altman described as “hard to quantify but deeply transformative.”

Still, as competition intensifies and capital costs soar, OpenAI’s financial path remains under the microscope — not for seeking a bailout, but for proving that its ambitious AI vision can sustain itself in the open market.