OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed optimism that President-elect Donald Trump will help the United States stay in the lead in the race on artificial intelligence, underscoring how it looks like this will be an “unusually important” topic to deal with.

The topic of AI has gained massive traction in the 2020s, with Altman stating shortly after Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election that it is “critically important” the U.S. remains on top of developing AI “with democratic values.” In a one-on-one interview with Fox News Sunday’s Shannon Bream, Altman addressed how the U.S. ought to build the necessary infrastructures, such as data centers, within its own country, as it would help the U.S. to have “the best AI infrastructure in the world.”

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“I believe President-elect Trump will be very good at that, I look forward to working with his administration on it.” Altman said on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream. “It does seem to us like this is going to be very important. It does seem like this will be one of these unusually important moments in the history of technology, and we very much believe that the United States and our allies need to lead this.”

Altman then described “one of the most special things” about the U.S. is how the country is able to “repeatedly lead the way on innovation” on various topics like science or technology. He also pointed to how one could point to other countries to see “very clear evidence” of what happens when this is not the case, and concluded that “we really need” to lead the race on AI.

Following the 2024 election season, Altman was recruited by San Francisco Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie as part of his transition team following his victory over incumbent Mayor London Breed. Altman was one of two businessmen recruited as part of Lurie’s transition team, the other being Mission Asset Fund CEO José Quiñonez. 

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Altman is not the only billionaire involved with AI assisting a political candidate, as Trump has recruited billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-head the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency.

Ahead of his inauguration in January 2025, Trump met with Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg at Mar-a-Lago, with Meta confirming the meeting while stating it is “an important time for the future of American Innovation.” Zuckerberg opted not to endorse either Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris prior to Election Day, but did write on Threads following the election that he was “looking forward” to working with the incoming administration.