Nonetheless, the coincidence between Altman’s assertion and the MIT report reportedly spooked tech inventory traders earlier within the week, who’ve already been watching AI valuations climb to extraordinary heights. Palantir trades at 280 instances ahead earnings. In the course of the dot-com peak, ratios of 30 to 40 instances earnings marked bubble territory.
The obvious contradiction in Altman’s total message is notable. This is not the way you’d anticipate a tech government to speak once they consider their business faces imminent collapse. Whereas warning a few bubble, he is concurrently searching for a valuation that may make OpenAI value greater than Walmart or ExxonMobil—corporations with precise income. OpenAI hit $1 billion in month-to-month income in July however is reportedly heading towards a $5 billion annual loss. So what is going on on right here?
Taking a look at Altman’s statements over time reveals a possible multi-level technique. He likes to speak large. In February 2024, he reportedly sought an audacious $5 trillion–7 trillion for AI chip fabrication—bigger than the whole semiconductor business—successfully normalizing astronomical numbers in AI discussions.
By August 2025, whereas warning of a bubble the place somebody will lose a “phenomenal amount of cash,” he casually talked about that OpenAI would “spend trillions on datacenter building” and serve “billions each day.” This creates urgency whereas probably insulating OpenAI from criticism—acknowledging the bubble exists whereas positioning his firm’s infrastructure spending as totally different and crucial. When economists raised issues, Altman dismissed them by saying, “Allow us to do our factor,” framing trillion-dollar investments as inevitable for human progress whereas making OpenAI’s $500 billion valuation appear virtually affordable by comparability.
This twin messaging—catastrophic warnings paired with trillion-dollar ambitions—may appear contradictory, but it surely makes extra sense when you think about the distinctive construction of at present’s AI market, which is totally flush with money.
A special sort of bubble
The present AI funding cycle differs from earlier expertise bubbles. In contrast to dot-com period startups that burned by way of enterprise capital with no path to profitability, the biggest AI traders—Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon—generate lots of of billions of {dollars} in annual income from their core companies.
