Investors concerned: Sam Altman attempted to direct OpenAI funds to personal projects

OpenAI's preparation for a possible IPO has once again surfaced an old vulnerability of the company: the boundary between the interests of the startup itself and the personal interests of its CEO. According to The Wall Street Journal, in recent months Sam Altman has been trying to promote ideas where OpenAI money or influence could help projects connected to his investments and personal ambitions. For investors, this is a sensitive topic right now.

If OpenAI really gets closer to a public offering in 2026, the market will need not only a history of rapid growth but also a clear system of corporate governance. In such cases, particular attention is paid to how management allocates capital, whether it has side interests, and whether the board of directors is sufficiently independent. The situation is complicated by Altman's unusual position: he has no stake in OpenAI's capital, but at the same time maintains very broad influence on strategic decisions.

In 2024, his official compensation as CEO was reported to be only $66,000, with the bulk of his wealth tied to numerous external investments. The most notable episode concerns Helion—an energy startup working on commercial thermonuclear fusion. Altman has long been considered its largest investor and as far back as 2021 invested $375 million in the company, calling it one of the main projects in his life after OpenAI.

When Helion needed a new round of financing, a deal of approximately $1 billion was discussed at a valuation of around $35 billion. According to the publication, Altman wanted to close nearly half of that amount not only with his own money but also with OpenAI funds. Inside the company, the idea was received coolly: some executives doubted both the technology itself and whether such an investment aligned with OpenAI's interests.

Ultimately, the scheme did not go through, although the parties did agree to a long-term purchase of up to 50 gigawatts of electricity by 2035. Last month, Altman stepped down from Helion's board of directors to reduce the obvious conflict of interest. Without OpenAI's support, Helion is now reportedly counting on a much more modest round—around $250 million at a valuation of $15 billion.

Similar logic can be traced in other initiatives. It is reported that Altman tried to attract OpenAI resources to support Merge Labs, a startup in the field of brain implants that could be considered a potential competitor to Neuralink. Another example is aerospace company Stoke Space.

Last summer, the possibility of buying a large stake in it or even acquiring the company using OpenAI's resources was discussed. Ultimately, the investor in Stoke Space became the Hydrazine fund connected to Altman, and the idea itself, including talk of data centers in space, did not receive support inside OpenAI. Later, Altman himself called the concept of space data centers unserious.

Against this backdrop, priorities began to be reviewed significantly more strictly inside OpenAI. After Fiji Simo's arrival as product director, the company reportedly began to focus more on creating a universal AI product for mass and corporate use, while some more controversial initiatives were postponed or frozen. This list included, in particular, the Sora video generator and the discussed "adult mode" for ChatGPT.

The logic is simple: the closer the company gets to an IPO, the less room it has for expensive and poorly explained experiments, especially if they overlap with the personal interests of top management. The story is sensitive also because the topic of conflicts of interest around Altman has come up before. Before OpenAI, he ran Y Combinator and managed to build a huge portfolio of investments in hundreds of startups.

Some of these companies later made deals with OpenAI, which inevitably raised questions about where the company's strategy ended and its leader's personal gain began. According to the publication, the lack of transparency in his asset structure persists now: even within OpenAI, they cannot always accurately assess how individual decisions overlap with his external interests. It is no coincidence that such concerns were cited as reasons for Altman's temporary suspension in November 2023.

After his return, the board of directors created a special committee on conflicts of interest, but there has been almost no public reporting on its work since then. The main takeaway for the market here is not that a technology company leader should not have outside investments at all. The question is different: can OpenAI convincingly demonstrate that decisions on capital allocation are made in the company's interest and not under the influence of its CEO's personal stakes.

If OpenAI really wants to go public, it will have to prove this not through promises, but through transparent rules, independent oversight, and clear capital discipline.