During a brief but awkward onstage moment at the India AI Impact Summit, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, CEO of rival AI company Anthropic, hesitated to link hands for a group photo. The incident, which quickly circulated online, sparked speculation about tension between the two tech leaders.
Altman clarified the situation to PTI on Thursday, explaining, “I was confused and didn’t know what I was supposed to do,” downplaying any suggestion of rivalry behind the moment.
The onstage moment:
After the summit’s keynote session, several global tech leaders—including Sundar Pichai, Pratyush Kumar, Altman, Amodei, and Alexandr Wang—posed for a ceremonial photo with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi stood at the center, with Pichai on his right and Altman on his left. Amodei, a former OpenAI executive, was next to Altman.
As cameras flashed, Modi and the other leaders raised their hands while linking them, but Altman and Amodei appeared momentarily unsure and ended up raising fists instead. “I didn’t know what was happening. Modi grabbed my hand, and I just wasn’t sure what we were supposed to be doing,” Altman said.
Background of their relationship:
Altman, 40, and Amodei, three years older, worked together at OpenAI until 2019. Amodei left in 2020 to co-found Anthropic with his sister Daniela and other researchers, reportedly due to disagreements over company direction. Since then, Anthropic has positioned itself as a competitor to OpenAI, and the two executives have taken different approaches to AI development.
In November 2023, after Altman was briefly ousted from OpenAI, the board reportedly approached Amodei to step in, but he declined. Altman returned as CEO shortly after. Since then, competition between OpenAI and Anthropic has intensified, including Anthropic running satirical Super Bowl ads mocking OpenAI’s reported plans to introduce advertising into ChatGPT.
