OpenAI Has a Tough Week – Could Be the Start of a Tough Year

We’re only a week into 2025, but already, OpenAI is having a rough year. Here’s everything that’s gone down for the iconic company over the past seven days, and a quick look at the disappointments it faces heading into the new year.

Sam Altman’s sister accuses him

Annie Altman, sister of the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, he has sued the chiefaccusing him of sleeping with her. The lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on Monday, alleges that Altman abused his sister when she was three years old and when she was 12 years old. which is expected to continue in the future.” The lawsuit seeks damages in excess of $75,000, as well as a jury trial.

Criticisms of abuse have been circulating on the Internet for more than a year and have been successful for the first time great interest in later days Altman was controversially dismissed from OpenAI (later to be restored). The case apparently pushed the claim to a wider audience. If it had been convicted, it would have been disastrous for OpenAI in terms of PR.

The Altman family issued a statement Wednesday to answer Annie’s case. “All claims are untrue,” the statement read. “This really hurts our whole family. It was very painful when they refused to receive regular treatment and criticized family members who are really trying to help them.” The quote, which Altman shared on X, also shows that Annie is mentally unstable and financially savvy. It says that although the family has supported Annie financially for many years, they “continue to seek more money” from them.

The family of a former employee is suing the company for murder

In recent weeks, the company has also been plagued by conspiracy theories that allegedly killed a former employee. Suchir Balaji’s death on November 26 prompted immediate suspicion, even though the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office he called the death a suicide. That is because, a few months before his death, Balaji acted as a corporate whistleblower, making claims that the company is violating US copyright law. A few weeks before his death, Balaji wrote online article in which he said that it shows that the company’s approach to birth has not fallen the US definition of “fair use.”

Although police have said there is “no evidence of foul play” in Balaji’s case, his family says he was killed by OpenAI and wants the FBI to investigate his death. In an interview with The San Francisco Standard, Balaji’s family he sent it They “believe that their son was killed at the behest of OpenAI and other artificial intelligence companies. His mother Poornima Ramarao said: “It could be a group of people involved, a group of companies, completely coordinated.” The autopsy of the doctor has not yet been made public.

The Cybertruck bomber reportedly used ChatGPT to plan his attack

Furthermore, it was recently revealed that the person who shot himself in the Cybertruck outside Trump Tower used ChatGPT to plan the attack. The Las Vegas police recently disclosed information to the media at press conference on Tuesday. “This is the first case that I’m aware of in the US where ChatGPT is used to help someone create a device,” said Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill. “It’s a worrying time.” It’s not something that OpenAI wants to include in its advertising (“Helpful in organizing terrorist attacks!” doesn’t have a nice ring to it).

Political winds

OpenAI doesn’t just face many, many nasty threats, it also faces the political realities of Trump’s second presidency. Elon Musk, founder of the company (and investor) he became the worst enemythey played a major role in Trump’s victory and now enjoy unprecedented access to government power. At the same time he was called the “President” of America, Musk is also fighting a legal battle for OpenAI which, while it was called “nonsense” by OpenAI, shows that he is not going anywhere.

A lawsuit filed by Musk last year alleges that the company gave away its original work in pursuit of a profit-making approach (OpenAI). he announced recently can be deleted original, original following traditional business methods). We finally looked at the lawsuit last November, Musk said expanded the case including other organizations close to OpenAI, including its sponsor, Microsoft.

At the same time, while Musk is involved in the fight against the law, and he can interfere with the federal policy in ways that will affect OpenAI, he can also use the soft power of his platform, X, to damage the company’s reputation. . Indeed, Musk and his supporters have seized on the recent OpenAI controversy, publicly disseminating malicious conspiracy theories. The Standard reports that after Suchir Balaji’s death, Musk and others close to him helped spread conspiracy theories about the author’s death: “When Ramarao (Balaji’s mother) tweeted about hiring a private investigator, Musk replied: “This it does not seem to be related to the death of the author. like suicide.”

The complex economics of OpenAI

OpenAI’s biggest challenge may be more political than financial. That said, the huge amount of money being used to support the company has left many people wondering: Is the OpenAI business sustainable? Last year, the company said that it lost $5 billion, while earning very little in income. OpenAI says its revenue will grow to $11 billion by the end of this year and will continue to explode in the coming years.

Indeed, OpenAI says its revenue will reach $100 billion by 2029 — just four years from now. Indeed, as a company, OpenAI has grown rapidly (its revenue jumped 1,700 percent in one year, New York Times he said), although skeptics still see his estimates as PR fiction designed to attract constant investment from true believers in the financial sector. Blogger Ed Zitron, who has said about OpenAI as “an unsustainable, unprofitable group with no corporate strategy,” he says the company’s future earnings projections are “ridiculous.” Responding strongly to the skeptical camp, Zitron writes:

The company says it expects to make $11.6 billion in 2025 and $100 billion by 2029, a statement so terrifying that I’m surprised it’s not some kind of financial crime to say it out loud. In other news, Microsoft makes about $250 billion a year, Google about $300 billion a year, and Apple about $400 billion a year. To be clear, as it stands, OpenAI is spending $2.35 to make $1.

Zitron says that OpenAI seems to be making a lot of money from registrations at ChatGPT, which doesn’t seem to be making enough money to cover the current costs. OpenAI also makes money by allowing the use of its algorithmic models for use in software applications. As it is, it doesn’t matter if their income increases if the cost of providing services becomes too high. Of course, it may raise prices, but OpenAI has competitors with deep pockets and similar benchmarks.

In short: OpenAI has its work. With powerful rivals, ongoing lawsuits, and scandals that could threaten the industry, the company needs to prove it. fake journalists who did this in the last few years can actually translate into very cool dollars and cents. It’s unclear, at this point, how that might be.