People and power

Sam Altman floats a joint Nobel for Trump and Xi, and rules out a 2026 IPO

In a Fortune podcast interview released on September 12, OpenAI's chief executive said a US–China deal on AI safety would be worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize and that now is the wrong time for OpenAI to go public.

By Chris · News from Sep 12, 2026 · 4 min read · Checked Oct 2, 2026

Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT), gives a lot of interviews. One released on Saturday September 12 produced some of his most quotable lines yet, ranging from a Nobel Peace Prize for two world leaders to a firm no on selling OpenAI shares to the public this year.

Both remarks came from the same conversation: an in-person interview with Fortune's editor-in-chief, Alyson Shontell, for her podcast Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors of Industry. Fortune recorded it on Friday September 11 and released it the next day, then published further write-ups over the following days.

A Nobel for Trump and Xi?

Asked about slowing AI down for safety, and whether that reaches as far as the US–China rivalry, Altman said: "I think Presidents Trump and Xi would get the Nobel Peace Prize together if they could agree on something that should be easy to agree to."

That is a very large if, and a very shiny prize to dangle. But the point underneath is a serious one: rules for the most powerful AI only really work if the biggest AI nations sign up. Altman's idea was that the two countries could agree on some shared standards and testing. It echoes the third step of Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei's slowdown plan, published on September 12, the same day the interview came out, which called for negotiations with authoritarian countries.

In the same interview, Altman said: "I do not think we should train models where we cannot make a safety case" for their controllability and alignment. A safety case is a structured, evidence-backed argument that a system is safe enough to use. He was also candid about the job. Asked how he carries the responsibility, he said: "You get used to anything. It's not the most fun way to live your life."

No stock market debut in 2026

An IPO, or initial public offering, is when a private company first sells shares on a stock exchange so that anyone can buy them. In the same Fortune interview, Altman said: "We're not rushing into an IPO. I actually think that given everything happening with safety, right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public." Pressed on timing, he answered: "I would say not 2026."

Staying private does not mean staying small. Bloomberg reported on September 29 that OpenAI is in talks to raise at least $30 billion from investors at a valuation of about $1.4 trillion, according to a Yahoo Finance summary. OpenAI's previous funding round, in March 2026, valued it at $852 billion. These are reported talks, not a finished deal, and nothing here is investment advice.

A month of balancing acts

Earlier, on September 3, Bloomberg reported Altman saying that AI developers had done a poor job of explaining AI's benefits to the public, leaving the industry exposed to a backlash. On September 12 he also publicly backed one part of Amodei's plan, writing that outside evaluators with employee-like access were a good idea and that OpenAI would adopt it too, according to MarkTechPost.

Put together, the month's comments show a chief executive balancing two messages: caution about the most powerful systems, and confidence in the business that builds them. Neither cancels the other out, and both are worth hearing in full rather than as a single headline.

What we don't know yet

When OpenAI will go public. Altman ruled out 2026 but gave no date; Fortune's coverage points to 2027 at the earliest.
The $30 billion fundraising is reported talks only. No closed round and no named investors were found as of October 2.
Bloomberg's original September 29 article could not be read directly; its figures come via Yahoo Finance's summary.

Sources

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