During the Wall Street Journal‘s Tech Live conference on Wednesday, OpenAI chief financial officer Sarah Friar hinted at the possibility that the government could “backstop the guarantee that allows the financing to happen” as the AI industry continues to take on even more debt.

Friar regretted her comment almost immediately, clarifying in a subsequent post on LinkedIn that “OpenAI is not seeking a government backstop for our infrastructure commitments.”

The suggestion clearly caused immense chagrin to OpenAI’s leadership; even CEO Sam Altman emerged to put out the fire, tweeting that “we do not have or want government guarantees for OpenAI data centers.”

Yet the damage was already done, exacerbating an already testy stock market. Ongoing fears over an AI bubble triggered a major tech s

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