As of March 16, 2026, Sam Altman is widely seen as a polarizing CEO of OpenAI whose recent Pentagon deal—struck shortly after the Trump administration banned Anthropic’s technology—highlights his aggressive expansion of influence amid accusations of fear-mongering on AI risks to boost adoption. Critics view him as contradictory for preaching AI safety while pursuing market dominance, fueled by public feuds, a harsh reaction to a rival Super Bowl ad, and a shift from the scaling hypothesis toward needing major AGI breakthroughs, yet he remains a central driver of generative AI mainstreaming since ChatGPT.