The Quiet Part · on the record (2)
“AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world. But in the meantime, there will be great companies created with serious machine l…” Airbnb Open Air conference · June 2015 → “The bad case — and I think this is important to say — is, like, lights out for all of us.” StrictlyVC interview · January 2023 →
SUBJECT-0700.dossier · person · status: active
SA
subject of file

Sam Altman

Former Y Combinator President, OpenAI CEO, Director of Bridgetown Holdings
Tracked because Former Y Combinator President, OpenAI CEO, Director of Bridgetown Holdings · 13 documented connections
Facts on record7
Connections mapped13
Sources cited14
Inferential claims1
✦ Thin coverage gap +24 connected to 13 entities · only 7 facts on record · flagged for follow-up research
Evidence: 2P 5I
🧠 Cognitive harm you own/control
Primary confidence
Aggregated from 1 platform owned, funded, or controlled by Sam Altman.
42
Score 0–100
Moderate
ChatGPT
42
2 documented harms · Moderate
Score combines documented harm count, severity weighting, platform reach, and engineered mechanisms. See full methodology →
Stated vs Revealed
No documented contradictions on file.
Documented Lies 2 promises broken or quietly abandoned All lies →
Disputed Major Primary evidence Governance Promised 2023-05-16 00:00:00+00
Altman to Congress: 'I have no equity in OpenAI'
Primary source: US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee testimony, 16 May 2023 ↗ 1 sourced violation Full record →
Quietly abandoned Moderate Primary evidence Governance Promised 2024-03-18 00:00:00+00
Altman: ads on ChatGPT would be a 'last resort' — within months OpenAI was hiring for ads
Primary source: Lex Fridman Podcast #419 with Sam Altman, 18 March 2024 ↗ 1 sourced violation Full record →
[PUBLIC COST ESTIMATE]
Documented financial relationships span 0 money flow chains, while 10 elected officials hold documented connections.
0Money Chains
0Traced Hops
Connected Officials
Calculation Methodology

Contract values are summed from documented money flow chains where this entity appears as a source or destination node. Amounts are drawn from USASpending.gov, FEC filings, SEC EDGAR, or LD-2 lobbying registrations.

Donor contributions aggregate documented amounts from the donor_interests table, sourced from FEC individual and PAC contribution filings.

Connected officials are elected officials in our database with a mapped relationship (lobbying, board membership, campaign contribution, etc.) to this entity.

Annualised flow represents the total documented dollar amount traced through money flow hops involving this entity. Where hop-level amounts are unavailable, the chain-level documented total is used as a conservative upper bound.

All figures are drawn from public filings. Estimates are conservative — undisclosed transactions, dark money, and vanish-point hops are excluded from totals. This is a minimum documented floor, not a ceiling.

PATTERN organization → [donor] → elected official → [no direct co... 756× PATTERN company → [investor] → company → [employment] → person 201× PATTERN person → [employment] → company → [contractor] → governme... 190× PATTERN person → [employment] → company 143× PATTERN company → [employment] → person 143×
TIMELINE Role Overlap Visualizer →
Connection Map
Key Connections
← Dario Amodei person
colleague
Dario Amodei worked with Sam Altman during his tenure at OpenAI, where Altman was CEO.
← Anthropic company
competitor
When listed as a known entity, Sam Altman of OpenAI is a direct competitor to Anthropic in the AI large language model space.
→ Center for AI Safety organization
signatory
Sam Altman signed the 2023 Center for AI Safety statement on AI extinction risk.
← OpenAI company
employment
Sam Altman serves as executive of OpenAI Global LLC (for-profit entity) and holds roles at OpenAI Inc. (nonprofit board). His compensation, equity, and financial interest in government contracts are not publicly disclosed.
→ ChatGPT (deprecated alias — see OpenAI) company
founder
Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI (Cognitive Impact: ChatGPT)
→ Bridgetown Holdings instrument
membership
Sam Altman serves as Director on Bridgetown Holdings board
Facts (7)
Data Freshness
Ageing Last update: 158d ago · Avg age: 977d
Confidence Tiers: Primary Source — cross-referenced government/corporate filings Pending Review — sourced but not independently verified AI Inference — analytical hypothesis from cross-referencing
✓ Verified Findings (2)
Independently re-checked: a second model read the source artifact and confirmed it supports the extracted claim.
Primary Source Signed a 2023 Center for AI Safety statement declaring: "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war." This positions Altman as both a primary architect of AI systems and a public advocate warning about their existential dangers.
Primary Source In a 2016 New Yorker profile, Sam Altman stated: "I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to." Also confirmed his home has a "reinforced underground basement."
AI Analysis (1)
AI-generated inferences derived from cross-referencing primary and secondary data. These are analytical hypotheses, not established facts — they are the platform's read, not its record, and the verification pipeline covers their provenance, not their truth. Where verification stops →
⚠ flagged by Gemini AI Inferencew·40 Sam Altman filed filing with the SEC on 2021-08-24. Accession number: N/A.
All Connections (13)
founder primary
Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI (Cognitive Impact: ChatGPT)
→ Bridgetown Holdings instrument
membership confirmed
Sam Altman serves as Director on Bridgetown Holdings board
→ Center for AI Safety organization
signatory primary since 2023
Sam Altman signed the 2023 Center for AI Safety statement on AI extinction risk.
← Ilya Sutskever person
membership secondary since 2024
Both associated with OpenAI; Sutskever as Chief Scientist and Altman as CEO.
← Reid Hoffman person
attribution_shared secondary since 2020
Claims about tech billionaire New Zealand property purchases as apocalypse preparation primarily attributed to Sam Altman and Peter Thiel, not Hoffman despite initial attribution.
← OpenAI company
employment primary since 2023
Sam Altman serves as executive of OpenAI Global LLC (for-profit entity) and holds roles at OpenAI Inc. (nonprofit board). His compensation, equity, and financial interest in government contracts are not publicly disclosed.
← Founders Fund company
Portfolio Company Leader secondary since 2015
Sam Altman is CEO of OpenAI, a major Founders Fund portfolio investment.
← Anthropic company
competitor primary since 2021
When listed as a known entity, Sam Altman of OpenAI is a direct competitor to Anthropic in the AI large language model space.
← Hakeem Jeffries elected official
no_direct_connection_listed inferential since N/A
Both Jeffries and Altman appear in the known entities database, but the documented facts about Jeffries contain no information establishing a connection.
← Valerie P. Foushee person
Indirect Relationship via Stand With Crypto inferential since 2024
Foushee voted against all 5 major pro-crypto bills tracked by Stand With Crypto (including FIT21, CLARITY Act, GENIUS Act, CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act). Sam Altman is a known crypto/tech figure associated with the crypto policy ecosystem monitored by Stand With Crypto.
← Chuck Schumer elected official
constituent/tech leader inferential since 2023
As New York senator, Schumer represents tech industry leaders; Altman is known entity and OpenAI is based in part in NY.
← Dario Amodei person
colleague primary since 2016
Dario Amodei worked with Sam Altman during his tenure at OpenAI, where Altman was CEO.
← Good Ventures institution
grant recipient / former affiliate secondary since 2015
Open Philanthropy (the grantmaking arm of Good Ventures) provided grants and funding to organizations led by or associated with Sam Altman, including OpenAI (where Altman served as CEO). Good Ventures funding supported AI safety work during Altman's tenure.
Sources (14)
2026-05-10 UNVERIFIED SEARCH_ERROR: Sam Altman not found in fec claim_flag Processed 📜 Receipt
2026 UNVERIFIED Research: Sam Altman — Parliamentary records (no results) parliamentary_record Processed 📜 Receipt
2026 UNVERIFIED Research: Sam Altman — Court records (no results) court_document Processed 📜 Receipt
2026 UNVERIFIED Research: Sam Altman — Lobbying disclosures (no results) government_disclosure Processed 📜 Receipt
2026 UNVERIFIED Research: Sam Altman — FEC donations (no results) fec_record Processed 📜 Receipt