Just two weeks after Elon Musk's dramatic fall-out with US President Donald Trump, the tech billionaire's rival strolled into the dining room of the president's New Jersey golf club, dressed sharply in a suit and flashing a broad smile.

Sam Altman, the 40-year-old chief executive of OpenAI, had just concluded a lengthy private meeting with Trump as the two were preparing to dine with the president’s major donors at his club, The Wall Street Journal reported.

As club members applauded, Trump introduced Altman, calling him a very brilliant man and adding, "I hope he’s right about artificial intelligence."

Sharp turn in relations

The WSJ stated that the warm June reception contrasted sharply with the cold shoulder Altman faced after Trump's election. When OpenAI co-founder Musk was Trump's "first buddy", Altman was shut out of Mar-a-Lago meetings and stuck in the inauguration overflow room while other tech CEOs stood on the sidelines.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Sam Altman bided his time and worked strategically to circumvent Elon Musk, securing AI infrastructure deals that garnered support from Donald Trump while deliberately avoiding his former collaborator.

Altman cultivated his direct ties with the president through private dinners at Mar-a-Lago and occasional phone conversations, marking a significant shift for the longtime Democrat who had previously likened Trump to Hitler. Now, the OpenAI founder is expressing regret over his anti-Trump stances.

Unlikely allies

The AI CEO and the US president form an improbable alliance given Altman's decades-long pattern of donating almost entirely to Democrats, mirroring the progressive yet libertarian-leaning values dominant in Silicon Valley circles.

In 2016, Altman publicly backed Hillary Clinton, warning on his blog that Donald Trump posed an "unprecedented threat to America" as an "erratic, abusive" leader whose rage-filled presidency would bring economic disaster. He noted that aside from mentor Peter Thiel, nearly all of Silicon Valley shared his view of Trump as "repugnant".

The AI giant publicly declared his departure from the Democratic Party in a July 4 post on X, stating the party's leftward shift left him "politically homeless"; a strategic move coinciding with Musk's exit from Trump's circle that now positions Altman to pursue government support for his ambitious global AI infrastructure project while expanding his influence over AI policy debates. 

Sam Altman's growing clout will see him deliver the keynote at an upcoming Federal Reserve conference, where he'll speak to central bankers about how AI affects the economy, according to the WSJ.

“President Trump is thinking big about American AI and building the infrastructure we need to stay ahead,” an OpenAI spokesperson told WSJ, adding, “We look forward to continuing our work with him to grow the economy and make sure AI benefits everyone.”