Last year, I scored a scoop of sorts, getting the opportunity to speak with Sam Altman, the gay OpenAI CEO and arguably the face of AI. He’s notoriously guarded about his personal life, so the fact that he opened up, however slightly, was welcomed.
I spoke to him in March of last year, and I heard from scores of people who told me they had no idea he was gay. He’s also married to another man, which he also tried to keep private. When I congratulated him on his “recent” marriage, he replied, “Thank you, it was actually a couple of months ago. We did it earlier and then the news leaked out in January.”
At the time I spoke to him, I was under the impression that he wanted to raise his profile a bit in the LGBTQ+ community. He’s smart enough to know that representation, particularly at a CEO level, is so important not just as an example of success within our community but also toward society’s perception of our queer people.
I came away from the interview with a perception of Altman: that he chooses his words very carefully, he’s obviously intelligent beyond measure, and he cared about how he was perceived, increasingly so by the queer community that he’s a part of. Also, he seemed reasonable.
For example, I cited this blog post that Altman once wrote: “I wish we could figure out a way to just never allow hate, discrimination, and bigotry and always allow debate on controversial but important ideas.” But what I neglected to mention was that Altman was responding to criticism he received from a previous blog post where he seemed to suggest homophobia was OK:
“This is uncomfortable, but it’s possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about gay people if we want them to be able to say novel things about physics. Of course we can and should say that ideas are mistaken, but we can’t just call the person a heretic. We need to debate the actual idea.”
In a nutshell, Altman’s point was that free speech shouldn’t be inhibited, and that has an eerie resonance to recent proclamations by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Musk has turned his unregulated X, formerly Twitter, into a hate-spewing social platform where homophobia and transphobia posts are celebrated and shared. Zuckerberg pulled fact-checking by Facebook in the name of free speech, and that means it’s perfectly fine to call a gay man like Altman “mentally ill.”
Altman also seemed to have a propensity for making sure queer youth lived in a world that was more accepting. I spoke to him around the time of the death of Nex Benedict, a trans high school student who died by suicide in Oklahoma after bullying. I asked Altman if he had anything to say about that tragedy as well as all the hate bills that were floating around state legislatures at the time:
“It’s just so sad and unfortunate, but I really believe in our youth, and I feel heartened about the long-term and even the medium-term trajectory," he said. "And I, like so many others, am proud of the arc of progress in general, and I'm very grateful to all of the work that people have done and do. And I think we're different in any way that we're able to handle the pressures and adversity.
"But I find the trajectory, if we zoom out, to be inspiring, and the way it happens is because people work really hard to make things a little bit better and to shift public opinion. It’s a civic duty, and duty to each other and to the world to keep making things a little bit better and that there's room for all of us to come along on that journey, both personally and as a society.”
Clearly, Altman cares a lot about “our” youth and is heartened by the "trajectory” of progress, but that slammed into a brick wall this week when Donald Trump, more or less, erased trans people from federal recognition, removed references to LGBTQ+” and HIV and AIDS from the White House and other government websites, and declared that there were only two genders. He took a step toward reinstating the ban on trans military service members and declared that trans prisoners must be in prisons that match their gender assigned at birth — that’s like a death sentence.
In the face of all this, along comes Altman, a queer man, who on Wednesday appeared supplicantly with Trump at the White House. Trump took the guardrails that the Biden administration wisely placed around AI. Welcome now to the wild and destructive west that is an unmonitored AI.
After he removed his nose from Trump’s derriere, Altman took to the “free speech” X and proclaimed his allegiance to the dear leader. He notably once said Trump was “terrible.”
"Watching [Trump] more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him (i wish i had done more of my own thinking and definitely fell in the npc trap)," Altman wrote. "i'm not going to agree with him on everything, but i think he will be incredible for the country in many ways!"
When it comes to morals or money, it’s a no-brainer when your thirst for more cash far outweighs your desire to be a role model. Yes, you might say, OpenAI does have a DEI program, but how long will that last if Trump is hovering over your business? Moreover, if the CEO of a company capitulates to Trump who seeks to further marginalize queer people, do you really want to work for that company?
The tech industry is mainly composed of straight white cisgender men, so the industry's DEI programs really don't work, and Altman along with Zuckerberg and Musk tying themselves in knots to tie themselves to Trump only underscore that tech companies like OpenAI really only want white straight cis men.
The youth that Altman cared about during our conversation have been panic-stricken by Trump. As we reported, the Trevor Project’s crisis services — phone, text, and chat — experienced a sharp 33 percent surge in volume on the day Trump was sworn in as president, reflecting the heightened anxiety and distress among LGBTQ+ youth. The following day, the increase grew even more pronounced, with volume rising 46 percent compared to typical daily rates in the preceding weeks.
This surge came on the heels of a staggering 700 percent increase in calls to the Trevor Project’s crisis lines on November 6, the day after Trump’s election. These numbers underscore the profound impact of political shifts on LGBTQ+ young people, many of whom are facing growing fear, uncertainty, and hostility since Trump was elected.
That’s why one thing that Altman told me has been repeating in my mind since I saw that picture of him gazing lovingly at Trump on Wednesday, and read his gibberish about changing his perspective on clearly an evil and ugly man who particularly has it out for the LGBTQ+ community that Altman professes to be a part of.
Here’s what he said, and I’ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions, “I also hope that people who are queer and are interested in this industry would feel no reason not to come work in it.”
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If you or someone you know needs mental health resources and support, please call, text, or chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or visit988lifeline.org for 24/7 access to free and confidential services. Trans Lifeline, designed for transgender or gender-nonconforming people, can be reached at (877) 565-8860. The lifeline also provides resources to help with other crises, such as domestic violence situations. The Trevor Project Lifeline, for LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger), can be reached at (866) 488-7386. Users can also access chat services at TheTrevorProject.org/Help or text START to 678678.