Sam Altman is Open to Work with China while Stressing OpenAI is not for Sale

TMTPOST -- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman indicated he is open to work with Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) peers while stressing rejection of any attempt to take over his company.

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“I would like to work with China, ” said Altman on sidelines of AI Action Summits in Paris, when asked about how he worried about China. He then said that the partnership may come true even though the U.S. government initially doesn’t greenlight it. “I know that for sure no, should we try as hard as we can, absolutely yes I think.” Altman told reporters, adding that working with China is “really important.”

Altman in late Janauary called R1, a reasoning model released by Chinese startup DeepSeek that month, an “impressive model” and promised OpenAI would deliver much better models in the future. “Deepseek's r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they're able to deliver for the price. we will obviously deliver much better models and also it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor!” Altman posted on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Speaking with The Times Tech Podcast earlier this week, Altman acknowledged DeepSeek did some nice work in creation of the chatbot. which has dethroned OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app in U.S. on Apple’s App Store more than two week ago. “They did some nice work. And I think there’s also some nice pieces of product work, like showing the chain of thought was clearly something people wanted,” Altman said. “Mass availability in the free tier was clearly something people wanted. Research wise, it’s not a big update to us, although they did a few nice things there as well.”

For Altman, what made him a surprise is the timing of DeepSeek’s sudden rise. “We knew that there were going to be, at some point, we would get more serious competitors and models that were very capable, but you don’t know when you wake up any given morning that that’s going to be the morning,” he said.

Relying to a question about the value of OpenAI on Tuesday in Paris, Altman said on “it’s not for sale.” He reiterated his response to Elon Musk’s latest bid by stating that “we’re happy to buy Twitter if you talk about.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday a group of investors led by Musk offered $97.4 billion to acquire the nonprofit that control OpenAI. Musk's bid is supported by his AI startup, xAI, which could merge with OpenAI if the deal goes through and also has backing from investors including Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital, Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, and Ari Emanuel’s investment fund, according to the report.

Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, confirmed he submitted a bid for all the nonprofit’s assets to OpenAI’s board of directors Monday, adding, “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”

Altman soon turned down the reported unsolicited $97.4 billion offer. “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” He wrote in a post on X, referencing Musk's 2022 purchase of the platform for $44 billion. Musk, not amused, quickly labeled Altman a “swindler.”