An "inconsequential" sum of money, but the PR cost is much, much higher - OpenAI's Sam Altman continues his 'mea culpa' tour...up to a point

One aspect of interest in the ongoing controversy around Anthropic being ousted from its $200 million AI contract with the US Department of War (DoW) and OpenAI’s rush to take to its place, is the relatively small beer nature of the value of the deal.

That has been something that has been alluded to by various OpenAI execs as part of the firm’s defense against the wave of negative comment that it has seen since the weekend, had earlier the week reposted a Tweet from her colleague Katrina Mulligan, Head of National Security Partnerships, OpenAI for Government, in which the latter dismissed the idea that OpenAI just thought of the money when signing with the DoW:

It’s a few million dollars, completely inconsequential compared to our $20 billion plus in revenue and definitely not worth the cost of a PR blow-up.

As it happens, ‘totally inconsequential” was ...