OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is looking to build, fund or buy a rocket company in a move that could see him competing in the space race against longtime rival Elon Musk, according to reports.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Altman has been exploring buying or partnering with an existing rocket launch provider with funding.
The report suggested Altman’s goal is supporting space-based data centers to power the next generation of artificial intelligence systems.
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The outlet also claimed Altman has already approached at least one rocket maker, Washington-based Stoke Space, over the summer, with discussions gaining momentum in the fall.
Among the proposals was a multibillion-dollar sequence of equity investments from OpenAI that could eventually have given the company a controlling stake in Stoke.
Those talks have since quieted, according to sources close to OpenAI, the report indicated.
Altman’s rocket outreach came as his company faces scrutiny over its aggressive expansion plans, per The Wall Street Journal.
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OpenAI has signed up for billions of dollars in new commitments, despite offering little clarity on how it will finance a big build-out.
Earlier this week, Altman declared a company-wide “code red” after ChatGPT began losing ground to Google’s Gemini chatbot, prompting OpenAI to delay other launches and ask employees to shift teams to concentrate on improving its flagship product.
For Altman, the interest in rockets aligns with the idea that AI’s demand for power will push computing infrastructure off-world.
He has been an advocate of space data centers to harness solar energy in space while avoiding environmental difficulties on Earth.
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Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Google’s Sundar Pichai have all shared the same ideas.
Stoke Space, founded by former Blue Origin engineers, is developing a fully reusable rocket called Nova, which reports say is the same as what SpaceX wants to achieve.
The Wall Street Journal noted that the proposed partnership would have given Altman a significant shortcut into the space-launch sector.
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The Altman talks highlight an ongoing rivalry between him and Musk. The pair co-founded OpenAI in 2015, then diverged over the company’s direction, and Musk departed three years later.
Since then, Musk has launched his own AI firm, xAI, while Altman has expanded OpenAI’s ambitions and recently backed projects that compete directly with Musk’s ventures, including a brain-computer interface startup.
Altman hinted at his aerospace ambitions earlier this year.
“I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time,” Altman recently told Theo Von. “Like, maybe we build a big Dyson sphere around the solar system and say, ‘Hey, it actually makes no sense to put these on Earth’.”
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Then in June, he asked, “Should I build a rocket company?” before adding, “I hope that eventually humanity is consuming way more energy than we could ever be generating on Earth,” he said.
FOX Business has reached out to OpenAI for comment.
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