How OpenAI Rewrote the Rules of Tech Negotiation

Altman’s Inner Circle and the Vision Behind the Deals

Insiders say Altman worked closely with OpenAI president Greg Brockman, chief financial officer Sarah Friar, and operations leader Peter Hoeschele to finalize the deals. Together, they aimed to accelerate chip development and data center capacity—focusing on technical execution first and leaving financial details to follow.

“Sam is the visionary, but Greg and the team under him really pulled these deals together,” said one person close to the negotiations. Brockman, a cofounder of OpenAI and former CTO of Stripe, reportedly handled the most difficult structural challenges behind the scenes.

Friar, who previously led Nextdoor and held senior roles at Salesforce and Block, was described as a “strong voice” in ensuring the projects remained financially viable. Her capital markets background proved essential to OpenAI’s strategy of scaling quickly while preserving flexibility.

From CoreWeave to Nvidia: The Blueprint for Scale

The current deal structure evolved from OpenAI’s early partnership with CoreWeave, where an $11.9 billion computing contract in exchange for $350 million in equity became the model for later agreements. That deal expanded to over $22 billion as CoreWeave’s valuation tripled, illustrating the circular nature of OpenAI’s ecosystem—where suppliers often become investors and customers simultaneously.

In similar fashion, Nvidia agreed to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI while the start-up committed to spend up to $350 billion on high-performance chips over several years. The arrangement was built on the long-standing personal rapport between Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

“That one was very much them,” a person close to the talks said, describing how the two leaders coordinated the deal directly without external bankers.

Strategic Partnerships with AMD, Oracle, and Broadcom

Altman also secured a $300 billion, five-year deal with Oracle to utilize its data centers, starting with a site in Abilene, Texas. The partnership emerged after Oracle lost an original tenant for the project in 2024. Meanwhile, AMD’s agreement gave OpenAI the right to purchase up to 10% of AMD stock at a penny per share in return for a 6GW chip order—an incentive designed to deepen collaboration.

Broadcom is involved in a similar multi-billion-dollar supply chain agreement that could extend over the next decade as OpenAI ramps up its 20-gigawatt data center ambitions.

Streamlined Negotiations and Minimal Advisors

Altman’s choice to exclude traditional banking intermediaries has raised eyebrows among analysts who say the agreements lack transparency and detailed financial disclosure. Still, insiders defend the approach as an intentional effort to “streamline and de-politicize” dealmaking, allowing OpenAI to act quickly in an industry moving at unprecedented speed.

“The focus has been on building capacity, not on structuring Wall Street-style financings,” one executive familiar with the process said.

OpenAI’s goal is to reach 1 gigawatt of computing power per week, with Hoeschele’s operations team leading execution. Recently, the company hired Mike Liberatore, formerly of Elon Musk’s xAI, to oversee financing for its growing AI infrastructure network.

The Bigger Picture: OpenAI’s Expanding Industrial Footprint

These trillion-dollar deals highlight Altman’s ambition to turn OpenAI into both an AI software pioneer and an infrastructure powerhouse—essentially creating the backbone for the world’s AI economy. The open-ended contracts also give the company flexibility to scale back if funding or market conditions change, reducing financial risk.

Analysts remain divided: some see visionary long-term positioning, while others warn of overreach in a capital-intensive sector. Still, the scope of Altman’s strategy has cemented OpenAI’s role as the epicenter of global AI development—and his personal reputation as Silicon Valley’s most audacious dealmaker.