OpenAI’s Sam Altman addresses staff over Pentagon deal, says operational calls are up to the government

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed employees on March 3 in an internal meeting, providing clarity over the company's controversial Pentagon deal. Altman said that the Pentagon had stated that operational decisions around the use of its AI technology are not OpenAI's to make, and that it will largely be managed by the government.

According to the CNBC report, the internal transcript quoted Altman saying, “So maybe you think the Iran strike was good and the Venezuela invasion was bad. You don’t get to weigh in on that.” He further stated that the US military will continue to rely on its expertise and inputs on how to use AI models. It will also allow OpenAI to build its own safety framework as it sees fit.

Altman clearly stated in the meeting that the final operational control will lie with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

Altman, in the meeting, also said, “I believe we will hopefully have the best models that will encourage the government to be willing to work with us, even if our safety stack annoys them.”

Highlighting Elon Musk’s xAI deal to deploy its models across classified use cases. Altman added, “But there will be at least one other actor, which I assume will be xAI, which effectively will say ‘We’ll do whatever you want,” he added. 

Since the deal, Altman has been defending and justifying the deal on social media, mainly X (formerly Twitter). He has also acknowledged that the deal was a rushed decision, and that the Pentagon “displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome.”

The meeting comes amid the criticism OpenAI is facing after announcing the Pentagon contract right after rival Anthropic was blacklisted as a "Supply-Chain Risk” to National Security. On the other hand, Anthropic is again in talks with the Pentagon on an AI deal, after refusing to drop its AI safeguards for mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.