OpenAI CEO Sam Altman probably should have kept his thoughts to himself Tuesday morning. But instead, like his rival Elon Musk often does, he took to Xitter to say something utterly tone-deaf about the present moment.

At 8:55 am Tuesday, after he'd likely had his coffee or whatever his preferred morning beverage is, OpenAI's Sam Altman decided to tweet his gratitude to software coders, writ large, now that a great many of them will be or already are out of a job.

"I have so much gratitude to people who wrote extremely complex software character-by-character," Altman wrote. "It already feels difficult to remember how much effort it really took. Thank you for getting us to this point."

From Altman's end of things, maybe it's been years since he knew anyone who was still doing any hand-coding, and it's not clear if there was a particular story in the news that he may have been responding to here. But, with greater frequency, we are going to be hearing about — if not personally knowing — coders and engineers getting laid off as companies move many activities into the hands of AI. And this "thank you" from Altman feels pretty up there in the annals of tech CEOs speaking from inside their bubbles to the frightened masses.

Remember when, a few months ago, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said he'd welcome Trump sending the National Guard into San Francisco, to like, fix crime and homelessness or something so that he could have a tech conference in peace?

Altman also appears to be getting back to work after doing the tour of Oscar festivities in Los Angeles over the weekend.

Among the reactions on Xitter to Altman's sentiments, we have "Also thank the artists who painted complex images stroke by stroke. It already feels difficult to remember how much effort it really took." And there's, "You’re welcome. Nice to know that our reward is our jobs being taken away."

There's also, "How are you always so tone deaf with anything you say?"

One more measured criticism from a user named Nyx says, "character-by-character discipline produced code [that] humans could audit line by line. AI-generated code at scale removes that. we're trading craftsman-level understanding for velocity, and nobody's accounting for what we lose in security review when the person who 'wrote' it can't explain why it works."

Altman has yet to comment further or walk back his pre-9 am tweet.

Previously: Altman, Musk, and Zuckerberg Named Person(s) of the Year by Time Magazine, as 'Architects of AI'

Top image: Sam Altman attends the 2026 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Mark Guiducci at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on March 15, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/WireImage)