Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is pushing OpenAI for assurances it won’t seek a government bailout if it doesn’t turn a profit. In a letter to CEO Sam Altman, Warren says she is concerned that the company is preparing to fall back “on the classic strategy of privatizing profits and socializing losses” amid soaring spending and growing fears of an AI bubble popping.
Warren writes that she is worried OpenAI “has committed to more than a trillion dollars in spending despite not yet turning a profit” and “appears to be seeking government assistance should it prove unable to pay its bills.” The senator, a ranking member on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, says the company’s “increasingly tangled web of speculative, debt-based industry partnerships and circular spending arrangements” creates risk for the entire US economy, which could leave the government with little option but to step in should the AI industry falter. Warren points to CoreWeave as an example, noting that the company is saddled with debt to fulfill its contract with OpenAI, which has “comparatively little debt on its own balance sheet.”
OpenAI has repeatedly rejected the idea it is seeking or has government guarantees. The company has been in a near-constant state of PR crisis over the matter since last November, when CFO Sarah Friar suggested taxpayers should “backstop” the company’s hefty infrastructure investments. Friar swiftly walked back her remarks and Altman stressed that OpenAI does “not have or want government guarantees for OpenAI datacenters [sic].” However, Warren writes that these “statements do not appear to reject federal loans and guarantees for the AI industry as a whole.” Even without a targeted bailout, Warren says OpenAI would benefit handsomely from such industry-wide support “given the scale of its financial commitments and the mismatch between its spending and revenues.”
The Trump administration has also rejected the idea of government bailouts for AI companies as they pour billions and billions of dollars into projects like Stargate to scale up AI with no clear path to profitability. Shortly after Friar’s backstop comments, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks tweeted that “[t]here will be no federal bailout of AI.” Concurrently, tech companies have been working hard to ingratiate themselves with President Trump and the federal government. Firms like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta all donated to Trump’s ballroom project; executives like Mark Zuckerberg, Altman, and Tim Cook have made pilgrimages to show fealty in DC or Mar-a-Lago; and the cofounder and president of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, and his wife Anna were recently revealed to be Trump mega-donors. Warren, along with other lawmakers, has suggested some contributions could be considered bribes.
Warren wrote to Sacks in November asking the administration to confirm it will not use taxpayer dollars to “prop up” major AI companies. In her letter to Altman, she says “he has yet to reply.”
Warren is asking Altman to provide details on conversations OpenAI has had with the US government about loan guarantees and to confirm what kind of federal support for the industry the company favors. Warren is also seeking details on the specific infrastructure OpenAI is seeking tax credits for and information on the company’s projected yearly finances through 2032, particularly what would happen in the event AI models plateau and demand for AI tools fails to materialize. She also asks for information on whether the company is earning a profit on any of its ChatGPT plans right now or anticipates doing so within the next three years.
Warren has given Altman until February 13th, 2026 to reply.
