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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has finally dished on Disney’s reaction to his decision to kill the company’s AI video generator app, Sora — scuttling a billion dollar deal the two giants had planned.
Given the amount of money Disney was prepared to invest, and the suddenness of the decision, speculation abounded on the drama behind the scenes. But in an interview on the “Mostly Human” podcast — the first he’s given since the Sora news — Altman insists that emotions were cool.
When he broke the news to Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, the first thing he told Altman was, “I get it,” Altman recalled.
“But it’s super sad always to disappoint a partner or users or a team, all of which are doing incredible work,” he said.
Both companies sound cagey about burning bridges. AI, bubble or not, is too buzzy a market to shut the door on one of the industry’s leading companies. And Disney’s cultural clout is too influential to ignore.
Altman, in the interview, left the door open to a future collab.
“I love Sora, I love generated videos, and I love our partnership with Disney, and we’re working hard with them to find a world where they can still do something amazing, and we can help with that,” Altman said. “But we need to concentrate our compute and our product capacity into these next generation of automated researchers and companies.”
Disney, in response to the Sora shutdown, responded in lukewarm fashion, underscoring its continued openness to AI tech.
“We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators.”
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