--- description: Find out why Sam Altman made TIME’s list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence. title: TIME100 AI 2025: Sam Altman image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6594c734553e992a/6998c92c66d4e397dfcbcbf8/Sam-Altman.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 26, 2025 # Sam Altman CEO, OpenAI by [Billy Perrigo](/author/billy-perrigo/) ## Billy Perrigo Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Correspondent  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Photo: Joel Saget—AFP/Getty Images) The most powerful man in AI is not a decorated programmer. He does not have an undergraduate degree, let alone the computer science PhD that’s increasingly becoming table stakes in his field. But what Sam Altman lacks in academic credentials, he makes up for in his dealmaking prowess, political acuity, and charisma. And then some. Because the challenges faced by OpenAI in the year 2025 are not just about how to write the right code. They require a leader who can navigate the shifting tides of Donald Trump’s Washington, hobnob with world leaders, manage the construction of enormous data centers, and [fend off](https://time.com/6342827/ceo-of-the-year-2023-sam-altman/ "undefined") internal threats to his own authority—all while presiding over a calendar of product releases befitting a tech company ten times OpenAI’s size. That Altman has succeeded at all of these tasks has made him more powerful as CEO now than he has ever been in OpenAI’s history. In January, hushed whispers in the AI world questioned whether Trump’s alliance with Elon Musk—who co-founded OpenAI but is in an ongoing [feud](https://time.com/7309389/elon-musk-sam-altman-ai-twitter-fight/ "undefined") with Altman—would result in the OpenAI CEO being frozen out. But Altman maneuvered around Musk, and two days into Trump’s second term, it was he who appeared alongside the commander in chief in the White House as the President announced a $500 billion data center project, which would greatly benefit OpenAI. Trump’s AI strategy, announced in July, contains many provisions that OpenAI had previously advocated for. Today Altman—a former Democrat who once was vocal in his opposition to Trump—is widely considered to enjoy a close and fruitful relationship with the president. The same may no longer be said for [Musk.](https://time.com/7291550/elon-musk-trump-implosion-can-be-seen-from-space/ "undefined") Altman has been equally busy abroad. In May he traveled with the presidential entourage to Saudi Arabia, where he met with Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman. (OpenAI has since discussed raising funds from Saudi Arabia’s near-trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund, The Information reported. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.) He has also spent time this year in the UAE, where OpenAI announced plans to build more massive data centers—confounding some U.S. national security experts, who have warned of the risks that such a deal could pose to national security. Meanwhile, Altman has been attempting to restructure OpenAI so that it more resembles a traditional company. The controversial project would unlock billions in funding, but critics fear it could erode some of the power of its non-profit entity, which was set up to prevent powerful AI from being exposed to the perverse incentives of the market. As part of the conversion, OpenAI is seeking to change its complicated profit-sharing arrangement—whereby successive investors can only receive profits below a cap—and replace it with a [standard setup](https://openai.com/index/evolving-our-structure/ "undefined"), in which each investor is entitled to their respective slice of the OpenAI pie. A sticking point in those ongoing negotiations is how the existing profit caps should translate into new OpenAI equity—especially the amount that should go to Microsoft, an early investor that must sign off on OpenAI’s restructure before it can happen. Without a deal by the end of the year, OpenAI stands to lose out on [$20 billion](https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openais-latest-funding-round-comes-with-a-20-billion-catch-1e47d27d "undefined") in commitments from SoftBank — money that the [loss-making company](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/08/chatgpt-gpt-5-openai-altman-loss.html "undefined") will likely need to fund the running of ChatGPT and the training of future AI models. All the while, Altman has been overseeing OpenAI’s conveyor belt of new research. In early August, the long-awaited GPT-5 launched, which Altman compared interacting with to talking to a “Ph.D.-level expert.” Altman, who has cultivated a reputation for hyping up his new releases, said on [a podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYn8VKW6vXA "undefined") in July that he had been testing GPT-5 by giving it a question from his email inbox to which he didn’t know the answer. The model, he claimed, answered perfectly. “I felt useless relative to the AI,” he said. _Disclosure: OpenAI and TIME have_ [_a licensing and technology agreement_](https://time.com/6992955/time-and-openai-announce-strategic-content-partnership/ "undefined") _that allows OpenAI to access TIME's archives._ Sam Altman: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2025 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305828/sam-altman-ai/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305828/sam-altman-ai/"},"headline":"Sam Altman","datePublished":"2025-08-26T20:11:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T11:54:42.392Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305828/sam-altman-ai/","keywords":["Tech","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","TIME100 AI 2025"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6594c734553e992a/6998c92c66d4e397dfcbcbf8/Sam-Altman.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Billy Perrigo","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/"}],"creator":"Billy Perrigo","articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6594c734553e992a/6998c92c66d4e397dfcbcbf8/Sam-Altman.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305828/sam-altman-ai/","name":"Sam Altman"}}]}] ```