CNBC Exclusive: Transcript: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Speaks with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on “Squawk on the Street” Today

WHEN: Today, Thursday, July 9, 2026

WHERE: CNBC's "Squawk on the Street"

Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC exclusive interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" (M-F, 9AM-12PM ET) today, Thursday, July 9. Following are links to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/07/09/openais-newest-ai-model-is-54-percent-more-efficient-on-agentic-tasks-than-anthropics-latest-altman-tells-cnbc.html, https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/07/09/openai-ceo-chinese-open-source-models-are-getting-very-good.html, and https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/07/09/openai-ceo-sam-altman-on-whether-the-company-will-go-public-this-year-i-dont-know.html.

All references must be sourced to CNBC.

JULIA BOORSTIN: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, thanks so much for joining us here today on the heels of making your ChatGPT-5.6 models available. You're announcing they're going to become generally available today. How are these new models meaningfully different than your rivals?

SAM ALTMAN: Yeah, so we're very excited. Thanks for having me. 5.6 Sol, I think, is not only the best model in the world for most people. It's also much more efficient than other models out in the world. So, it's 54 percent more token efficient on agentic coding tasks and also, you know, as good or better as the other best models out there. And we're really seeing people now start to care about efficiency, understand their spend, get a great ROI. So, this is a great step forward for us.

BOORSTIN: So, that 54 percent number, that's news. How much is that coming from your focus on bringing down costs for your partners, for your customers?

ALTMAN: Entirely. Cost and speed. It's also much faster. But customers clearly, every enterprise now is thinking about spend and the value they're getting in exchange for A.I., and this is what we really want to do. We want to be the best, most dependable, most reliable, most best ROI partner for enterprises.

BOORSTIN: Here in Sun Valley, you're meeting with a lot of your partners. I'm sure most of the companies here are your customers. What kind of pressure on spending are you hearing from them? And how are you hearing they plan to adjust their budgeting around A.I. spend?

ALTMAN: Well, they really like our focus there. This is, this is the first year where A.I. spend has been a big topic. And all of a sudden, it's a very big topic. Everyone's asking what we can do to help reduce spend or increase value. And I think our models are well suited for that. So, this release of 5.6 Sol, I think it's a very welcome release.

BOORSTIN: So, your 5.6 went through this government approval process, was delayed by a couple of weeks. What happened in that government approval process?

ALTMAN: I thought it was a very productive process. We had a very good time working with Secretary Lutnick, Secretary Bessent, Director Karen Cross. You know, this is our first time through it. So, there are things we will learn about how to make it better for the next one, which will get going on soon. And I think it'll be a much smoother process. But the government's technical capability was impressive to me. People really are doing good work testing and red teaming these models. And they really care about getting these models out quickly, but with a high level of safety. And I think this is actually in everyone's interest. If you want broad access, which we do, and you have powerful models, you really want to be able to be confident in your safety claims, because otherwise the world is going to get uncomfortable very fast.

BOORSTIN: So, did you have to make changes? Did you implement new safeguards as a result of this?

ALTMAN: Yes, of course. So, they would test and find things and we would say, okay, great, that's a problem. We'll address it this way. Or we would say, you know, this is actually, we think, a good behavior to have. So, it was a collaborative back and forth, but we made many changes through the process.

BOORSTIN: So, OpenAI said just a couple of weeks ago that it's working with the Trump administration to try to establish a system, what you called a repeatable process for future model releases. How is that going? And do you think you and your rivals are going to have to have delays in terms of when you can roll out your models in the future?

ALTMAN: Look, I think A.I. is going to be great. I think there's been too much talk about all the negativity and, you know, most of it has not quite come true in the way that our industry has said it would.

BOORSTIN: But you mean in terms of job losses or?

ALTMAN: There has been very little job loss that I can see so far, despite, you know, predictions that 50 percent of the jobs are going to go away or whatever. But I also mean in terms of all of the negative impacts that using the technology could have. It's been better than a lot of people feared so far. Doesn't mean we don't have a lot of work to do in the future. I think part of the reason though, is that the industry has done hard work to align the models and to build safeguards around these systems. And for a new technology that's been adopted so fast and so deeply, you know, it's gone better than a lot of people thought. Not perfectly, of course. But part of that is this focus on making these models safe and still useful. So, having another partner in that, the government now, that's also going to be testing models and looking for problems, I think that is good as long as the process is understandable, fair, quick. And the government seems to really share those goals. And my guess is our next time through it with our next model, it'll be a much smoother, we understand it and know how to go with it better.

BOORSTIN: As you work to bring down costs for your customers, how does the rising cost of compute and memory impact your budgets and your planning going forward?

ALTMAN: It's definitely a headwind. There's no way around that. It means we have to be even smarter and deliver more algorithmic gains to combat the upward infrastructure costs and still have a declining price to the customer.

BOORSTIN: There's been reporting that Chinese models are catching up to models released by U.S. frontier labs. With your launch today, what's your response to those concerns about the rise of China?

ALTMAN: The Chinese open-source models are getting very good. I think that's fine. But I also think we will continue to have the best models in the world and people really want the best models in the world.

BOORSTIN: Microsoft recently announced that it's pulling back from using A.I., OpenAI. Microsoft is obviously a big investor in your company, but as they pull back from OpenAI and Anthropic to focus more on their own models, does that pose a threat to your business?

ALTMAN: I predict Microsoft will remain one of our biggest customers.

BOORSTIN: And you had some news that's interesting for consumers just yesterday, and you introduced a new voice model.

ALTMAN: Yeah.

BOORSTIN: How do you think that will impact your consumer-oriented business as well as your enterprise business?

ALTMAN: So look, it's easy to get most excited about 5.6 Sol, and as I think we all are. It's this incredible model. But we forget, it's easy to lose how much there is to gain in all of these other modalities. Voice is increasingly how I interact with A.I., and I didn't think that was going to be the case. I've always been like a typer or a texter. But the voice model is now so good that I'd kind of rather talk to it as long as I'm, you know, not in a room with other people. And I find that it's faster. I find that I have a kind of different thinking process around it. I originally thought this was largely going to be a consumer feature and that, you know, consumers really wanted to talk to their A.I. like sci-fi from the movies. But I'm now pretty convinced this will be a huge enterprise thing too. Watching the way people at OpenAI have been using Codex and how they just talk to it. They might talk for like 30 minutes and try to think through some ideas, and then Codex will go implement it. This seems like it's going to be an important part.

BOORSTIN: Do you think this will drive consumers to pay?

ALTMAN: Yes.

BOORSTIN: Now, I have to ask some questions about the reports last week that you proposed that the U.S. government take a five percent stake in OpenAI. It's part of a push to establish a broader regulatory framework. What can you tell us about that?

ALTMAN: A lot of inaccuracies there, but I probably shouldn't get into it.

BOORSTIN: Okay. So, if you can't get into that, tell us about your outlook on the regulatory framework now and your proposal, not just for an approval process that we talked about before for launching new models, but for a larger U.S.-led standards body for A.I.

ALTMAN: Again, people want this technology. This is clearly something that businesses, consumers really want to use. They want it to be safe. When you get on an airplane, you don't want to have to go think about, oh, is this airplane going to crash? Have they done all the right safety work? You just want to assume that it's safe. And with A.I, the impacts of using a model can have an impact on the whole world. And so citizens of the world also want to know that something irresponsible is not going to happen. There will be a balancing act. We'll have to leave enough space for people to use these tools the way they want. And we certainly don't want to be the, you know, we don't want to like impose our moral worldview on everybody. But I think it's important that people can rely on these models being safe enough at the power level they're getting to that they don't have to constantly think about it. So, I think for broad adoption, getting well-understood safety at the level of when you get on an airplane, it's not going to crash. I think that's important. And, go ahead.

BOORSTIN: Oh no, but just thinking more broadly about even what the suggestion of the government taking a stake in the company might mean about your approach, what does that say about the way you're thinking about your relationship with the government and with regulatory bodies beyond that?

ALTMAN: I think there's no connection between any potential, you know, OpenAI equity or other companies' equity in a sort of sovereign wealth fund and the right regulatory approach. I think completely separate. But, you know, I hope that the regulatory approach will be global. Everybody will get access. It's not like the U.S. is going to disproportionately benefit here. I hope that it will be quick and fair and does not get in the way of smaller companies. It would be easy to overreact here. So, I hope it's light. And I hope it means that people can use A.I. without having to think about safety.

BOORSTIN: I have to ask about an IPO, about your IPO plans before we close out here. Just yesterday, SpaceX closed at its lowest price since going public. How does that performance shape your outlook about your timing for your IPO?

ALTMAN: We're not a space company.

BOORSTIN: Are you going to be going public this year?

ALTMAN: I don't know.

BOORSTIN: Okay. Well, we will be watching very closely. Sam Altman, thanks so much for joining us here in Sun Valley. We'll let you get back down to the conference.

ALTMAN: Thank you.

BOORSTIN: Thanks so much.

For more information contact:

Stephanie Hirlemann

CNBC

e: [email protected]