I noticed an interesting pattern in Silicon Valley — new "prophets" constantly emerge, telling us about the apocalypse and simultaneously selling us salvation. Sam Altman is simply the most successful model of this conveyor belt.

Let's go back to 2016. The New Yorker wrote an article about him when he was 31. Even then, he was the president of Y Combinator and was stockpiling weapons, gold, and potassium iodide to protect against nuclear radiation. He had two evacuation suitcases and a plot of land in Big Sur, from where he could quickly fly away by plane. Ten years later, he became the one shouting the loudest about the danger of AI to humanity — and at the same time, the one accelerating it.

Here's the essence of his business model: presenting everything as a holy war for human survival. He refined this at YC, turning a small workshop into a huge empire. Then he transferred this tactic to OpenAI. He talks about "existential risks" of AI, compares them to nuclear war, tells the Senate that people should be afraid — and every word becomes a headline. Free advertising through managed fear.

And then he offers a solution: Worldcoin. A silver sphere scanning eye retinas to distribute money in the AI era. Sounds like salvation, but in practice, it quickly raised suspicion — more than ten countries suspended the project over privacy concerns. But for Altman, that’s not the main point. The main thing is that he positioned himself as the only one with the answer.

Regarding regulation — he is a master of reversal. In 2023, he testified before Congress and said: "Please regulate us." Proposed a licensing system that would block competitors. But when Google and Anthropic caught up in technology, his stance changed. Now he says strict regulation stifles innovation. When he was ahead — he called for rules. When he lost the advantage — he called for freedom.

Behind this was the transformation of OpenAI. Founded as a non-profit with the mission to "safely develop AGI." By 2024, the word "safely" was quietly removed from the mission. Revenues soared from tens of millions in 2022 to over $10 billion in 2024. The company's valuation grew from $29 billion to $100 billion.

Remember November 2023? He was ousted from the board for "misconduct." It turned out he was hiding control over a venture fund, lying about safety processes, even about the launch of ChatGPT — the board learned from Twitter. Any of these violations should have cost him his position. But no. 95% of employees signed a petition, Microsoft sided with him, and he returned with even greater power. He fired almost the entire board.

Why? Because he is not an ordinary CEO — he is a "charismatic leader" in Max Weber’s understanding. His followers believe not in procedures, but in him. When he is challenged, they defend him. After his return, the OpenAI security team was disbanded. The chief scientist, who initiated his dismissal, left. In May 2024, the head of security tweeted: "The safety culture has been sacrificed for brilliant products."

But he is not alone. Musk talks about the dangers of AI, but Tesla is the largest robotics company. Zuckerberg spent $90 billion on the metaverse, then pivoted to AGI. Peter Thiel invests in singularity companies and simultaneously builds bunkers in New Zealand. Palantir, his company, was the "brain" behind operations against Iran in early 2026, integrating data from satellites and drones through Claude.

Everyone plays a double role — warning about the apocalypse and creating it. This is not a split personality, it’s a business model.

Now about his wealth. He always said he had no OpenAI shares and worked out of love. But Bloomberg estimated his personal wealth at around $2 billion. This comes from investments — Stripe brought him hundreds of millions, Reddit too. He invested in Helion, a company working on nuclear fusion, said that the future of AI depends on energy, and then OpenAI signed a major energy contract with Helion.

He doesn’t hold direct shares in OpenAI, but he built around it a huge investment empire. Every sermon about humanity’s future adds value to this empire. Sam Altman’s net worth is growing not from salary, but from this web of interests.

Let’s return to the emergency backpack with weapons, gold, antibiotics, and land in Big Sur. He has never hidden this. The evacuation kit is real, the bunker is real, the obsession with the apocalypse is real. But he is also the one accelerating the apocalypse. This is not a contradiction — in his logic, the apocalypse doesn’t need to be stopped, it just needs to be strategically positioned in advance.

In February 2026, he announced a red line — no using AI in warfare. And immediately signed a contract with the Pentagon. This is not hypocrisy, it’s an internal necessity of his model. Moral positions are part of the product, contracts are the source of profit.

He must be both a merciful savior and a ruthless prophet of the apocalypse. Only then does his story continue, only then does his "fate" become clear.

The real danger is not AI itself, but those who believe they have the right to determine humanity’s destiny.