Recent Times Coverage of Sam Altman | Generated by AI
I’ll search for recent New York Times coverage of Sam Altman.Let me search specifically for New York Times coverage:Let me search for the actual New York Times article about Sam Altman:Question: What has the New York Times said about Sam Altman recently?
Answer:
Based on recent reporting, the New York Times has been involved in two significant stories related to Sam Altman in early April 2026:
The Medvi Profile Controversy
On April 2, 2026, the New York Times published a profile of Medvi, a telehealth startup, presenting it as validation of Sam Altman’s prediction that AI would enable billion-dollar companies with minimal employees. The article described the company as being on track for $1.8 billion in sales with only two employees, and included a quote from Altman stating he had won a bet with tech CEO friends about when such a company would appear.
However, this story faced significant backlash from critics who accused the Times of being misled by a company with serious regulatory and ethical issues. The FDA had sent Medvi a warning letter in February 2026, six weeks before the Times profile, for misbranding violations. Critics also pointed out that the article failed to mention multiple lawsuits, fake AI-generated doctor personas in advertisements, and deepfake before-and-after photos.
Techdirt and other outlets criticized the Times for what they characterized as uncritically promoting Altman’s AI narrative while overlooking the company’s questionable practices.
The New Yorker Investigation
While not from the New York Times itself, The New Yorker published a major investigative piece by Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz on April 6-7, 2026, examining Sam Altman’s trustworthiness and leadership. This piece has dominated recent media coverage about Altman.
The investigation featured interviews with over 100 people and included claims from an OpenAI board member who called Altman “unconstrained by truth” and described him as having sociopathic traits. The reporting was based on internal memos compiled by former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and over 200 pages of notes from former safety lead Dario Amodei.
In June 2025, Altman had appeared on the Hard Fork podcast (co-hosted by New York Times columnist Kevin Roose) where he criticized the Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI over copyright issues related to AI training data.
References:
- https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/07/the-new-york-times-got-played-by-a-telehealth-scam-and-called-it-the-future-of-ai/
- https://www.drugdiscoverytrends.com/the-new-york-times-spotlighted-medvi-the-fda-had-already-warned-the-self-proclaimed-fastest-growing-company-in-history/
- https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sources-sam-altman-sociopath
- https://www.semafor.com/article/04/06/2026/new-yorker-investigation-raises-questions-over-sam-altmans-trustworthiness
- https://www.techbrew.com/stories/openai-sam-altman-memos-newyorker
- https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/25/sam-altman-comes-out-swinging-at-the-new-york-times/
- https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/new-york-times-medvi-ai-glp1s