- Sam Altman said not being named Time’s “Person of the Year” has saved him from unwanted attention.
- The OpenAI CEO was on the shortlist for the accolade alongside Barbie and King Charles III.
- Altman told Trevor Noah that he’d received more attention in the past year than he would’ve liked.
Sam Altman said he was “thrilled” at losing out on Time’s “Person of the Year” accolade, which went to Taylor Swift instead.
Speaking on the “What Now? with Trevor Noah” podcast, the OpenAI CEO said he was pleased to be out of the spotlight for once and “happy” for Swift. Altman was on the shortlist for the award alongside Barbie, King Charles III, the Hollywood Strikers, and Xi Jinping, and more.
“I’ve had more attention this year than I would have liked to have in my entire life,” Altman told Noah during the podcast. “Thrilled to not get that,” he said of the Time title.
Altman said the attention he’d received over the past year had been fun in some ways but difficult for his personal life. He said he was often recognized in public and never got “to be anonymous anymore.”
With Altman at the helm, OpenAI has been at the forefront of the AI boom since the release of ChatGPT last year. The CEO has become a central figure in the tech world and a household name around the world. Over the past year, he’s met several world leaders to discuss the future of AI.
Altman has been under more intense scrutiny since his dramatic ousting from OpenAI last month. The CEO was suddenly fired in a shock board decision, briefly jumped ship to Microsoft, and was re-hired all in the space of a week.
The failed coup caused chaos at OpenAI, with employees threatening to quit unless Altman was reinstated.
Despite losing out to Swift for Time’s top accolade, Atlman was named Time’s “CEO of the Year.”
Fellow tech titan Elon Musk also weighed in on Swift‘s accomplishment, joking that her popularity might decline after winning the coveted Time title.
The Tesla CEO was referring to the backlash he received after winning the award in 2021.
