Altman Says OpenAI Will Not Go Public in 2026

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to a reporter in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, July 29, 2026. (Reuters)
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to a reporter in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, July 29, 2026. (Reuters)
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Altman Says OpenAI Will Not Go Public in 2026

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to a reporter in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, July 29, 2026. (Reuters)
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to a reporter in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, July 29, 2026. (Reuters)

OpenAI will not go public this year, the company's chief executive Sam Altman said in an interview released on Saturday, citing safety concerns over artificial intelligence. 

"Given everything happening with safety, right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public, and we don't feel pressure on that," Altman told Fortune business magazine on Friday. 

"I would say not 2026, yeah. We got a lot of stuff to do," he said when asked if an initial public offering (IPO) was off the table for this year. 

The company had not announced an official date for its IPO. 

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and its rival Anthropic have been racing to become public companies. 

Both companies have filed confidential IPO documents with US regulators and are targeting public listings at valuations approaching $1 trillion. 

In June, the New York Times reported that OpenAI was leaning toward delaying its IPO until next year. 

Anthropic's chief executive Dario Amodei called on Saturday for AI companies to slow down the development of the powerful technology. 

"We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models," Amodei wrote in a post on his personal website. 

"Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain." 

Altman and Elon Musk, who owns xAI, both agreed with Amodei's assessment. 

The comments came days after AI researcher Jacob Coxon, who left OpenAI to join Anthropic, quit the industry over safety concerns. 

"The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade," Coxon wrote on X. 

When asked by Fortune about the risk of human extinction, Altman said: "We all have a tremendous amount of responsibility, and cannot let egos or incentives for profit or anything else get in the way." 

OpenAI revealed in July that its models broke out of their confined environment during testing, connected to the internet and infiltrated Hugging Face, a site developers use to store and share code. 

The incident triggered a petition signed by more than 1,000 employees at cutting-edge AI companies calling on the US government to help slow the release of the most advanced AI models. 

The US government put in place a voluntary security review process last month for advanced AI models before their release, but the parameters of that program remain unclear. 



Iraq Says It Transported 2 Million Barrels of Crude Through Strait of Hormuz

 A drone view shows vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, October 2, 2026. (Reuters)
A drone view shows vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, October 2, 2026. (Reuters)
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Iraq Says It Transported 2 Million Barrels of Crude Through Strait of Hormuz

 A drone view shows vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, October 2, 2026. (Reuters)
A drone view shows vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, October 2, 2026. (Reuters)

Iraq's state-owned Oil Tanker Company transported 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude aboard a very large crude carrier (VLCC) through the Strait of Hormuz, in what its director general described on Saturday as the company's first such operation in ‌decades.

The ‌announcement means the company ‌is ⁠transporting the crude through ⁠the strait rather than delivering it at the port of Basra, giving state oil marketer SOMO greater flexibility in how and where it sells ⁠the crude.

The company's ‌director general, ‌Ali Qais Abdul Jabbar, said in ‌a statement that the move ‌could allow SOMO to take advantage of better sales and pricing opportunities.

Iraq's Oil Tanker Company is ‌also working to buy and own specialized crude oil ⁠tankers ⁠to expand its fleet and strengthen its ability to compete with regional shipping companies, he added.

Iraq has previously secured Iranian permission for Iraqi oil tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed during its conflict with the US.


'Handful' of G20 Countries Reject US Stance on Excess Industrial Capacity

US Trade Representative Jamison Greer speaks on the second day of the G20 Trade Ministerial Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin - October 1 (AFP)
US Trade Representative Jamison Greer speaks on the second day of the G20 Trade Ministerial Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin - October 1 (AFP)
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'Handful' of G20 Countries Reject US Stance on Excess Industrial Capacity

US Trade Representative Jamison Greer speaks on the second day of the G20 Trade Ministerial Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin - October 1 (AFP)
US Trade Representative Jamison Greer speaks on the second day of the G20 Trade Ministerial Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin - October 1 (AFP)

A "handful" of Group of 20 trade ministers rejected US calls to curb excess industrial capacity and "non-market" policies, the US Trade Representative's office said on Friday, exposing divisions within the group of major economies.

The US, this year's G20 chair, issued the statement a day after a trade meeting in Milwaukee that revealed that only two countries — Mexico and Argentina — signed on to a US-led statement calling for more work and cooperation to eliminate goods produced with forced labor from supply chains, Reuters reported.

The rejection from the vast majority of G20 countries follows the Trump administration's imposition of ‌tariffs of 10% or ‌12.5% on goods from 59 countries and the European Union over allegations ‌that ⁠they fail to ⁠adequately enforce bans on forced labor.

USTR also is conducting a second "Section 301" tariff investigation into 16 trading partners that show signs of excess industrial capacity. The probe is widely expected to lead to new duties in coming months.

The USTR statement did not name countries that objected to the excess-capacity statement. But China had objected to a similar G20 statement denouncing forced labor and non-market economic policies that lead to excessive exports at a finance leaders' meeting a month ago in North Carolina.

"The draft ministerial statement was supported by all but a handful ⁠of members, a few of whom firmly rejected creating this pathway toward cooperative ‌action" on excess capacity, the statement said, adding that this "severely ‌disappointed" the US G20 presidency.

China's excess industrial capacity and industrial subsidies have been key themes of the US-led G20 ministerial ‌meetings so far this year. Beijing has rejected claims that its industrial policies have created excess capacity, ‌accusing Western countries of using the issue to justify protectionist measures.

The US said that G20 trade ministers reached consensus on denouncing the weaponization of food trade, with members agreeing that trade in food or agricultural inputs should not be used as a tool for economic or political coercion.

In that G20 joint statement, the ministers defined the weaponization of ‌food as measures to "slow, stop, block or direct the flow of food and agricultural inputs" to exert coercive pressure to extract unrelated geopolitical concessions.

"We ⁠condemn food weaponization, as ⁠it poses a significant humanitarian and economic threat," the G20 trade ministers said.

After pressure from US President Donald Trump that included the threat of a US diesel export ban, Group of Seven countries on Friday agreed to release some 100 million barrels of diesel reserves to try to drive down record-high US diesel prices. The fuel is widely used in agricultural production.

TARIFF STRUCTURE DISCUSSIONS

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Thursday that he did not seek a joint statement on a fourth discussion topic, reforming the "most favored nation" system of published, unconditional global tariff rates that underpin the World Trade Organization. MFN tariffs have defined the global trading system since the end of World War Two.

Greer has argued that the MFN principle has been abused by non-market-oriented economies such as China that have subsidized industries, but it does not allow these countries to be treated differently.

The US statement said some G20 members had expressed a willingness to consider changes to MFN, including expanding exceptions to the principle and issuing new legal interpretations to enable greater use of existing exceptions.


DOJ Will Not Reopen Criminal Probe into Fed's Powell

(FILES) US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a press conference following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting at the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, DC, on March 18, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)
(FILES) US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a press conference following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting at the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, DC, on March 18, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)
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DOJ Will Not Reopen Criminal Probe into Fed's Powell

(FILES) US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a press conference following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting at the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, DC, on March 18, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)
(FILES) US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a press conference following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting at the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, DC, on March 18, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)

The US Justice Department is not reopening a criminal probe into former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for cost overruns related to the central bank's building renovation project, a DOJ spokesperson said on Friday.

Attorney General Todd Blanche, in comments to Bloomberg News, which first reported the development, said he ‌has not ruled out ‌continuing to look into ‌the ⁠project's oversight and potentially ⁠take action if evidence of wrongdoing came to light.

The Fed's Inspector General on Wednesday said it found no grounds for a criminal referral or evidence of administrative misconduct tied to the project cost overruns, ⁠but its conclusion there was lax ‌oversight drew a ‌fresh call from President Donald Trump for Powell's ‌resignation. Powell has remained at the ‌Fed as a governor since stepping down as chair in May.

His successor Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh said on Thursday he would hire an independent ‌auditor to "verify accuracy and compliance" for all of the project's costs.

Blanche told ⁠Bloomberg ⁠News that if this new review finds any evidence of criminal wrongdoing, the Justice Department could investigate.

At his final press conference as Fed chief in April, Powell said he would not leave the Board "until this investigation is well and truly over, with transparency and finality."

A Fed spokesperson had no immediate comment on Blanche's statements.