dc188 How Sam Altman Sidestepped Elon Musk to Win Over Donald Trump

At President Trump’s inauguration, Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAIdc188, was relegated to the overflow room while other tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg took prime spots on the dais under the Capitol rotunda.

But days earlier, before flying into Washington, Mr. Altman was on the phone with Mr. Trump, preparing an announcement that would outflank Mr. Musk and put Mr. Altman’s company at the center of the new administration’s agenda for artificial intelligence.

On the 25-minute call, Mr. Altman appealed to Mr. Trump’s love of a big story and of a big deal. Mr. Altman told the president-elect that the tech industry would achieve artificial general intelligence — the hypothetical moment when technology matches human intelligence — during the Trump administration, according to three people familiar with the call. And to get there before competitors from China, OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank had completed a $100 billion deal to build data centers across the country.

The day after the inauguration, Mr. Altman stood behind Mr. Trump in the Roosevelt Room of the White House as Mr. Trump announced the deal,jolibet called Stargate, and described it as the “largest A.I. infrastructure project by far in history.”

Stargate had been in the works for months, but Mr. Altman and his partners timed the announcement to allow Mr. Trump to take credit for it in his first days in office.

“We wouldn’t be able to do this without you, Mr. President,” Mr. Altman said in front of a gathering of reporters.

Ms. Harris may give remarks about border issues during the visit, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a trip that has not yet been made public. The people said final details about exactly where Ms. Harris would visit or what else she might do on the trip have not been decided. The Harris campaign did not immediately provide a comment.

“What he said or didn’t say is between him and the people of North Carolina,” said Mr. Vance, former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate. He added: “I’ve seen some of the statements. I haven’t seen them all. Some of them are pretty gross, to put it mildly. Mark Robinson says that those statements are false, that he didn’t actually speak them. So I think it’s up to Mark Robinson to make his case to the people of North Carolina that those weren’t his statements.”

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