OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s intense rivalry with Anthropic has reached a new level.
During an interview with podcaster Ashlee Vance in an episode of Vance’s “Core Memory” podcast posted on Tuesday, Altman named checked Anthropic while talking about the recent attack on his San Francisco home.
“I think the doomerism talk hasn’t helped. I think the way certain other labs talk about us hasn’t helped,” Altman said, adding, “I think the way Anthropic talks about OpenAI doesn’t help.”
It’s not clear which Anthropic comments Altman is referring to. In the wake of the early morning attack, Altman wrote a blog post that referred to “the Shakespearean drama between the companies in our field,” though he did not name Anthropic or any other AI model makers. In the post, he also suggested that a recent New Yorker exposé may have made things more dangerous for him.
After the attack, Altman told Vance that he initially had “an adrenaline shock” only to turn more despondent.
“I was just, like, you know, there’s gonna be more stuff like this, and it’s incredibly disheartening,” he said. “I went through a real depressive cycle about it. But it’s very scary.”
Authorities have said that Daniel Moreno-Gama traveled from Texas to California with the intent of killing Altman. Before he was arrested outside OpenAI’s headquarters on the early morning of April 10, Moreno-Gama threw a Molotov cocktail at Altman’s $27 million home, authorities said.
Moreno-Gama is facing state and federal charges, including attempted murder. The FBI said Moreno-Gama listed other AI CEOs’ names in an “anti-AI” document it found on him. The names of the other CEOs have not been released.
OpenAI’s rivalry with Anthropic isn’t slowing down
In recent months, OpenAI’s rivalry with Anthropic, founded by seven former OpenAI employees who felt Altman was not sufficiently focused on safety, has grown increasingly intense. Representatives for Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
In December, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei poked fun at companies that declared “code reds,” remarks that were taken as an insult to OpenAI. Ahead of the Super Bowl, Anthropic released an ad campaign poking fun at ads in AI chatbots, which happened to coincide with OpenAI preparing to add ads to ChatGPT. In response, Altman said, “Anthropic serves an expensive product to rich people.” Weeks later, Altman and Amodei declined to join hands during what was supposed to be a moment of unity at an AI conference in India.
In late February, Altman called out the Trump administration’s overreach when Anthropic was effectively blacklisted by the Pentagon. At the same time, OpenAI quickly announced a deal with the Pentagon that Altman later said was rushed.
The Information later reported that Amodei, in a private memo to employees, called OpenAI’s messaging “safety theatre.”
“Sam is trying to undermine our position while appearing to support it,” Amodei wrote in the memo, according to the publication. “I want people to be really clear on this: he is trying to make it more possible for the admin to punish us by undercutting our public support.”
OpenAI faced severe backlash, including briefly losing its No. 1 crown among free apps on the Apple App Store. Caitlin Kalinowski, who had led hardware and robotics at OpenAI since November 2024, resigned in protest.
Elsewhere during his conversation with Vance, Altman was asked about Anthropic’s decision not to publicly release Claude Mythos, citing concerns that the AI model would make it too easy to hack popular programs and systems. Altman said it amounted to “fear-based marketing.”
“It is clearly incredible marketing to say, ‘We have built a bomb. We were about to drop it on your head. We will sell you a bomb shelter for $100 million to run across all your stuff, but only if we pick you as a customer.'”
Ultimately, Altman said he hopes the conversation around AI changes.
“I hope cooler heads prevail,” he said.
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