He has to know that this would leak and it makes him look really bad. This is going to be a meaningful, unforced error.
Just because you hate Altman doesn't mean everyone else does! Most people just know him as the guy who makes ChatGPT which most people like.
EDIT: Also, it doesn't help to brag about how this is good actually because now they are getting app downloads! People sympathize with victims of unfair situations. They don't like seeing people take advantage of those unfair situations though. No one has ever found the welfare recipient bragging about their welfare to be sympathetic.
Which is intended to muddy the waters about Anthropic’s actual position vs OpenAI’s, and portray himself as a conciliator (for the audience of DoD/Trump) who is still bound by equally strong ethics (as a fig leaf for OpenAI’s employees sympathetic to Anthropic). All to swoop in a land a big contract from the same people he is making a show of “supporting” in public.
I’d be pretty pissed too, tbh. Like, should he instead be thanking Sam effusively for being a manipulative slimeball acting entirely within his own self interest?
If as he says Sam’s comments are actually damaging Anthropic’s credibility/bargaining position with his public commentary then trying to change the popular narrative about what OpenAI/Sam are doing is a reasonable tactic.
As for your welfare analogy I’m kinda struggling to understand how to map that onto the participants in the current scenario or the lesson intended to be implied by it.
Going "what he's saying is straight up lies" is no more evidence backed than Altman claiming he asked the DoD to have Anthropic given the same deal as OAI and have the SCR designation avoided.
You don't give habitual liars the benefit of doubt.
Just because you hate Altman doesn't mean everyone else does! Most people just know him as the guy who makes ChatGPT which most people like.
But of course we could live in different bubbles