Sam Altman's message to employees on ICE also makes 'fun of' Mark Zuckerberg

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has sent a message to employees on Slack this week criticising Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the in the process appeared to take a swipe at rival Mark Zuckerberg. As reported by Business Insider, Altman told his staff that ChatGPT-maker OpenAI aims to ‘not get blown around by changing fashions’, adding, “We didn’t start talking about masculine corporate energy when that was popular.

” The remark made by Altman was widely interpreted as a subtle jab at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who last year championed a return to masculinity in corporate culture during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s stance on masculinity

In his podcast interview with Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg argued that corporate culture had shifted too far away from masculinity, saying, “The masculine energy, I think, is good… It’s one thing to say we want to be welcoming and make a good environment for everyone.

It’s another to basically say that masculinity is bad.” “If you’re a woman going into a company, it probably feels like it’s too masculine. It’s — there isn’t enough of the energy that you may naturally have,” he told Rogan. “You want women to be able to succeed and have companies that can unlock all the value from having great people no matter what their background or gender.”Zuckerberg described the merits of a culture that “celebrates the aggression” of business, while acknowledging that women often feel companies are “too masculine.”

Sam Altman’s broader point

Along with this, the memo shared by OpenAI CEO also noted that the company didn’t “become super woke when that was popular,” positioning the company as resistant to cultural trends in favour of long-term focus. His comments came alongside criticism of ICE, reflecting his broader concerns about government enforcement practices.

Intensifying rivalry between Sam Atlman and Mark Zuckerberg

The exchange is the latest flashpoint in the ongoing AI talent war between OpenAI and Meta. Zuckerberg has aggressively tried to poach OpenAI employees, reportedly offering $100 million signing bonuses. While Altman said last year that none of OpenAI’s top talent had accepted such offers, Meta has successfully hired away several prominent figures, including ChatGPT co-creator Shengjia Zhao and three researchers from OpenAI’s Zurich office.Zuckerberg even went so far as to hand-deliver soup to an OpenAI employee he was attempting to recruit — a move that underscored the intensity of the rivalry.