• Sam Altman said he talks to someone in the government every few days.
• The OpenAI CEO sat down with Oprah Winfrey to discuss the future of artificial intelligence.
• Altman cited the need for a good working relationship between AI companies and the US government.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he regularly communicates and works with the US government.

The billionaire discussed his working relationship with Washington, DC, in a primetime interview with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday.

"I personally probably have a conversation with someone in the government every few days," Altman told Winfrey.

Winfrey's special, "AI and the Future of US," aired on ABC this week and seeks to demystify the ever-evolving technology. In addition to Altman, Winfrey spoke to Microsoft founder Bill Gates and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Altman stressed the importance of partnerships between the companies creating AI and the government, citing an immediate need for safety precautions.

"One of the first things we need to do — and this is now happening — is to get the government to start figuring out how to do safety testing of these systems, like we do for aircraft or new medicines," Altman said.

"If we can get good at that now, we'll have an easier time figuring out exactly what the regulatory framework is later," he added.

In OpenAI's quest to do just that, Altman said he frequently communicates with different branches of government. The founder said his company is in contact with "a lot of people" in the executive branch and "dozens of people" in Congress.

Last month, OpenAI and Anthropic signed a deal allowing the government access to test and evaluate their artificial intelligence models. The move comes amid increasing cries for regulations as the technology rapidly advances.

Altman said his conversations with government leaders primarily focus on how the US can be a global leader in safe AI, a topic that leads to discussions of building enough data centers, producing AI chips, creating a geopolitical strategy around AI, conducting safety tests on the technology, the economic impacts of AI, and collaborating with other governments.

In August, the United States Agency for International Development became the first federal customer of OpenAI, striking a deal to use the company's ChatGPT Enterprise service. The move was largely seen as part of OpenAI's aim to bring its products to the public sector.

However, in California, OpenAI has opposed an AI safety bill that has divided the tech sector, saying it will "stifle innovation. " People like Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "godfather of AI," back the bill that would add more regulation to AI.

In March of this year, the EU passed the Artificial Intelligence Act, which went into effect over the summer.

• President Donald Trump announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs on Wednesday.
• Many commentators have questioned the tariffs and highlighted their potential economic consequences.
• One said Trump was unlikely to U-turn on the tariffs, so it was time to "sell the dip," not buy it.

President Donald Trump announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs on Wednesday — and people have been reacting as global markets take a hammering.

Here's what big names in business and economics have been saying:

Business Roundtable

Joshua Bolten, the CEO of Business Roundtable, an association that represents more than 200 CEOs, said in a statement the tariffs "run the risk of causing major harm to American manufacturers, workers, families and exporters." He added: "Damage to the US economy will increase the longer the tariffs are in place and may be exacerbated by retaliatory measures."

He said the Business Roundtable "supports President Trump's goal of securing better and fairer trade deals with our trading partners" but called on him to introduce "additional reasonable exemptions" and a "transparent, predictable exclusion process."

Larry Summers

"Never before has an hour of Presidential rhetoric cost so many people so much," Larry Summers, a former Treasury secretary, wrote on X. "The best estimate of the loss from tariff policy is now closer to $30 trillion."

Summers added that the tariffs were the most expensive and "masochistic" the US had imposed in decades.

Mohamed El-Erian

"The price action in global financial markets in the immediate aftermath of the US tariff announcement points to major worries about global economic growth," Mohamed El-Erian, the former CEO of bond giant PIMCO and the chief economic advisor at Allianz, said on X.

Mariana Mazzucato

"These tariffs will cause inflation in the United States; they will cause lower consumer power of US workers. The estimates are between $1,700 to $5,000 per family in terms of the costs of these tariffs," Mariana Mazzucato, an economics professor at University College London, told ITV's "Peston" program.

Boaz Weinstein

Boaz Weinstein, Saba Capital Management's founder, doesn't expect Trump to change course, posting on X: "I'm often wrong, but I don't see him doing a u-turn. This is not a buy-the-dip opportunity. It's a sell the dip opportunity."

David Rosenberg

"So, this tariff file is now being labeled 'Make America Wealthy Again'? What is with that adverb 'again' which is defined as 'returning to a previous condition'? The previous condition, I can tell you, was not nearly as good as the current condition, seeing as US net national net worth just reached a record level of $157 TRILLION (a cool $1.2 million per household … too bad we don't all live at the average!)," David Rosenberg, the founder and president of Rosenberg Research & Associates, said on X.

"Have tariffs really stood in the way of wealth creation in America? I think the title should simply be the truth: 'Let's Make the World Poor Again' (and then we can buy it at a discount)," Rosenberg added.

Nouriel Roubini

Nouriel Roubini, a professor emeritus of the NYU Stern School of Business, said the "Liberation Day" label was "Orwellian doublespeak."

"Whatever the consequences of these tariffs will be — ie lower growth and higher inflation and how much of it depending on the eventual size of these tariffs post-negotiations that will be ugly and long-drawn. There is absolutely no 'liberation' at all in them: not for US consumers, workers and businesses, let alone for the rest of the world," he said on X.

Paul Krugman

"I guess it's just possible that when we get details about the Trump tariffs they will be lower than what he just announced, but based on what he said, he's gone full-on crazy," Paul Krugman, a Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist and former MIT and Princeton University professor, wrote in his Substack newsletter.

"If you had any hopes that Trump would step back from the brink, this announcement, between the very high tariff rates and the complete falsehoods about what other countries do, should kill them," Krugman added.

Howard Silverblatt

"March continued with President Trump's rapid executive orders and policy changes, as tariffs (along with their potential impact on the economy), inflation, employment and consumer spending became the main concerns of the market, which pulled back with increased trading on strong negative breadth," wrote Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst of S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a S&P Global column.

"Adding to the concern were Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) government employment reductions, as well as US layoffs, which have increased (along with retail warnings)," he added.

The Yale Budget Lab

"The price level from all 2025 tariffs rises by 2.3% in the short-run, the equivalent of an average per household consumer loss of $3,800 in 2024$. Annual losses for households at the bottom of the income distribution are $1,700," wrote the Yale Budget Lab in a new analysis published on April 2, shortly after Trump's blanket tariff announcement.

Jared Bernstein

"True, the United States is a large and dominant country. And it is a relatively closed country, meaning we depend less on trade than most other countries," said Jared Bernstein, former chief economist, in his newsletter. "That means, as Trump has correctly argued, we can hurt them more than they can hurt us. He fails to give a coherent rationale for why we need to start a trade war with Cananda, Mexico, Japan, Europe, and other traditionally reliable trading partners."

"First, though they've been explicitly cavalier about the pain they're causing, higher inflation, slower growth, lower investment, falling stock prices — as of this moment, the Dow is down 1,200 points — and higher recession chances could force them to recant. But, at least so far, that may have been the way of Trump 1; it's not the way of Trump 2," he added.

Justin Wolfers

"Monstrously destructive, incoherent, ill-informed tariffs based on fabrications, imagined wrongs, discredited theories and ignorance of decades of evidence. And the real tragedy is that they will hurt working Americans more than anyone else," said Justin Wolfers, economics professor at University of Michigan and public policy scholar, on BlueSky.

Daryl Fairweather

"If these tariffs were more targeted and on specific goods, I wouldn't be so sure we would have stagflation. But these appear to be extremely broad, so I expect higher inflation and lower or even negative economic growth," said Daryl Fairweather, Redfin chief economist, on BlueSky.

"Home construction was already going to be weak this year, but these tariffs (combined with labor problems from immigration policy) will mean fewer homes built," she added.

Bill Gross

The latest set of tariffs is "a similar event to going off the gold standard in 1971. It's an epic event. It's not something where you can time quickly for a market bottom. It's something that we're going to have to live with as long as President Trump continues with this stance," Bill Gross, the cofounder of PIMCO, told CNBC.

"I don't think he's going to back down. President Trump, to be very blunt, is a macho male, and this macho male is not going to back down tomorrow simply because the Nasdaq's down 5%," said Gross, who is also known as "Bond King."

Gross said it's not a time for investors to bottom fish, likening it to "catching a falling knife."

Steven Blitz

"Tariffs attack US trading partners but, in effect, attack US corporate profit margins first," wrote Steven Blitz, the chief US economist at GlobalData.TS Lombard. "The 40-odd years of profits rising relative to GDP has ended. The macro risk hitting markets is real, but only accentuates the devaluation process."

"Further exacerbating market volatility is redirection of foreign capital from the US to wherever multiple expansion appears more promising," Blitz wrote.