Brad Gerstner, Founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, joins CNBC's "Halftime Report” to discuss the backlash against AI and what it means for the future of the AI sector.
What Brad Gerstner said
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Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, dismissed the concerns raised by a former Anthropic researcher as "ridiculous hyperbole" and defended the AI industry's safety efforts. He argued that the debate about AI risks has been ongoing for a decade and that companies, the federal government, and industry leaders are taking unprecedented steps to ensure safety. Gerstner cited examples such as the government's shutdown of Mythos over cybersecurity concerns, the executive order on model release frameworks, and transparency reports from Anthropic. He pushed back on the idea that there is no risk in the alternative, noting that adversaries will continue developing AI regardless. He also questioned who is behind the negativity, suggesting it may be coordinated, and referenced a story claiming AI has created a million new jobs in America.
Key takeaways
Gerstner says no one in AI is saying 'full steam ahead, disregard safety'.
The government shut down Mythos over cybersecurity concerns and forced a hold on its release.
Mythos was completed in late January and is only now rolling out.
Gerstner questions who is behind the negativity, suggesting possible coordination, including from the CCP.
AI has created a million new jobs in America, per The Economist.
1:00Now multiply that risk by tens of thousands of users." How would you respond to all that?
5:39But how would you then respond to the fact, let's just say, you know, Dario Amodei himself back in January, posting writings about the warnings of AI?
All right, welcome back. The debate over the risks and rewards of AI reaching a fevered pitch this week, with the former Anthropic researcher going public with his own concerns. His warnings drew a sharp rebuke from our next guest, Brad Gerstner. He's the founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, joins us now. He's an investor in both Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as, all of you know by now, in several of the hyperscalers. Good to have you back, especially to have a conversation in this important time.
Well, it's good to be here, Scott. And first off, you know, I can't believe it's been 25 years. I was watching those images this morning. I know you were around; I was around New York City at that point in time. And here we are 25 years later, and my prayers are still with so many of my friends and families that lost people that day. So thanks for having me on today.
Yeah, no, it's a pleasure to have you here. I appreciate those words. And of course, we share all of that with you and everybody. Let's have a conversation about what I think has become the national conversation: the risk and rewards, the promise and the peril of AI, which I feel like picked up this week with Jacob Coxson from Anthropic, the researcher who quit and posted the following on social media. For those who don't remember or didn't see it: "I resigned from Anthropic today," he wrote. "I spent the last three years doing pre-training research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They're racing straight to self-improving superintelligent intelligence and gambling with our lives. The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade." You responded to that on X saying, quote, "Ridiculous hyperbole from an ex-junior employee who worked a total of six weeks at Anthropic, now calls for regulatory intervention. No thanks," and a couple of emojis after that. I can understand why those in and around the AI ecosystem would want to both discredit and disparage this person for saying what he did, but he is not the only one who has either posted or written about concerns about AI, especially self-improving. I'm sure you saw the Paul Tudor Jones op-ed from The Wall Street Journal, where he said that AI may become the third superpower, quote, "The threat is real. What are the chances that very soon, an AI model reinventing itself thousands of times over makes one mistake that is harmful, if not devastating, to humanity? Now multiply that risk by tens of thousands of users." How would you respond to all that?
Well, first, Scott, I would say that we should always have open debate about the risks and reward of technology. And this discussion has been going on for a decade. There was nothing new this week. In fact, I've not talked to a single person in AI who says, "Full steam ahead. Disregard safety." It turns out we all care about kids. We all care about the future of the country. We know the massive benefits it offers, but we also want to take the extra time to make sure that we do this safely. But what I didn't like this week is these hyperbolic scare tactics, which I think are hiding behind a political agenda. And we ignored all of the extraordinary steps already being taken, unlike in the age of the internet, unlike with social media, to get ahead of these downsides.
So let me just share a few. Number one, the companies themselves are investing a massive amount of money and compute in making sure that we build sophisticated safety systems. They're deeply coordinated with the national security apparatus of the federal government to make sure that we secure our national security and other safety issues. And they're issuing transparency reports like we saw out of Anthropic yesterday. Second, the Treasury and Commerce Department this year already took the unprecedented step of shutting down Mythos because they were concerned about potential cybersecurity hacks. So they hardened the systems and forced them to put it on the shelf until they rereleased it. They also had an EO around the model release framework, which is effectively a regulatory scrutiny that occurs before any frontier model is released. In fact, you know, there was a lot of celebration this week about the model that cracked Navier-Stokes, right? That is an Astra Plus One model working inside of OpenAI. Ask yourself, why doesn't the public have access to this model? Because it's undergoing scrutiny by the lab and by the government. They're not just going to release these models. Mythos was completed at the end of January, and just now is rolling out to the broader public. So we're taking a lot of time. And then finally, broader industry is coming together. You know, Jamie Dimon, Michael Dell, myself, many others, dozens of CEOs coming together to make sure that we're coordinated around our critical industries and making sure that we're taking safety very seriously. So I don't think we've invested this much time and energy in safety before a new technology in my 25 years in Silicon Valley. And if you listen to the echo chamber this week, you would think that we were hurtling ahead, you know, with total disregard to safety. And it's simply not true.
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Gerstner, B. (2026, September 11). "Who is behind all this negativity" on AI, says Altimeter Capital's Brad Gerstner [Interview transcript]. CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1337875/
MLA
Brad Gerstner. ""Who is behind all this negativity" on AI, says Altimeter Capital's Brad Gerstner." CNBC Television, 11 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1337875/.
BibTeX
@misc{gerstner2026_1337875,
author = {Brad Gerstner},
title = {"Who is behind all this negativity" on AI, says Altimeter Capital's Brad Gerstner},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {sep},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1337875/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
