Just hours before Sam Altman accepted Anthropic's rejected Pentagon deal, OpenAI CEO told employees: Cannot believe, I am trying so hard to save a CEO who has ...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's not-so-happy relationship with each other is well known across industry and outside. Sam Altman apparently acknowledged the same recently openly in front of OpenAI employees as well, just hours before he accepted the deal rejected by arch rival Anthropic.

But the twist here is that he reportedly did not say this to share his displeasure about Anthropic CEO, but apparently while trying to save his company from an angry Department of Defense. According to a report in Axios, on February 26, Altman sent an all-staff message saying that OpenAI shared Anthropic's red lines and wanted to help de-escalate — while making clear that he still hoped to strike his own deal with the Pentagon.

In his message, Sam Altman acknowledged that the optics of a deal with Pentagon at that stage may not look good in the short term, but stressed the nuance of the situation and added that he was committed to acting on principle rather than appearances. A day later, on February 27, Altman relayed to a core group of staff that negotiations between the Pentagon and Anthropic had taken a turn for the worse due to the perception that Anthropic CEO Amodei was playing to the press.

A few hours later on the same day, as the Pentagon's 5pm deadline approached, Altman reportedly told the group that the Pentagon believed it could offer Anthropic an off-ramp from the supply chain risk designation. CEO Altman remarked to this group of employees that he found it strange to be working so hard to "save" a rival whose CEO had, in his view, spent years trying to destroy OpenAI.It is the same stance that OpenAI CEO shared with his employees after the company had signed the deal with Pentagon.

His message to employees went after OpenAI accepted the deal just hours after archrival Anthropic turned down a similar agreement with the Pentagon and the Trump administration announced that it was labeling Anthropic a 'Supply Chain risk'.

Sam Altman to employees: You do not get to dictate terms to Pentagon

Altman told employees clearly that the company doesn’t get to make the call about what the Defense Department does with its artificial intelligence software and suggested that the desire to do so may have been part of tensions between the Pentagon and Anthropic.During an all-hands meeting that followed a few days later, Altman said that Pentagon made clear it will listen to OpenAI’s expertise about the technology’s applications but the federal agency does not want the company to express opinions about whether certain military actions were good or bad ideas, according to a person familiar with the matter. “You do not get to make operational decisions,” Altman reportedly said.During the all-hands meeting, Altman also said he’s continuing to push for the Defense Department to abandon its designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk — a label that has not previously been given to a US company and is typically applied to adversaries of the United States.