Pulse News

**Altman’s Opportunism Should Worry Trump**

By Abram Brown

In Washington, time is a malleable concept. In some moments, it seems like nothing there can ever happen fast. And then—zip, zip, zzzzip. The midterms are here! And the chessboard every macher in America has just painstakingly labored to set up in their favor gets reset.

Sam Altman grasps this dichotomy. Altman has gone to some effort to befriend the current White House: He attended Donald Trump's inauguration and the very next day appeared in a banner news conference with the president, Oracle's Larry Ellison, and SoftBank's Masayoshi Son to unveil Project Stargate. But Altman, once a reliable Democratic donor who grew disillusioned with President Joe Biden, is now getting back to liberal fundraising, according to The New York Times. Later this month, he'll host a shindig for Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who faces an election race in 2026. It's Altman's first such event for a Democrat since 2022.

Clearly, Altman realizes something a lot of Americans are seemingly struggling to remember amid the tumult of Trump's reascension: As fast as the administration has swept to chaotic power, that momentum will diminish just as quickly—particularly if the president can't hold up his end of the bargain with the corporate elite, and if the economy sputters.

Altman's decision to boost Warner just months into Trump's administration was one of several reminders this week that support for the Trump agenda could be brittle. A second was the stock market decline prompted by the confusion over Trump's tariffs, and another was the public criticism of his proposal for a federal crypto stockpile from venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, a close Elon Musk friend and strident Republican. All together, it felt like one of the only weeks since January in which the president's agenda didn't advance totally unconsidered by the nation's boardrooms.

Sure, Altman is a canny opportunist. But his ping-ponging here is a reminder that the vibe shift in Silicon Valley—and nearly every other part of the country—toward Trump and conservatism perhaps isn't as durable or as overwhelming as it has appeared. CEOs like Altman want economic consistency. If Trump can't deliver that, they'll start reenvisioning that proverbial chessboard sooner than later.