OpenAI CEOSam Altmanhas reacted to a brief but widely discussed moment involving Anthropic chief Dario Amodei during the ongoingIndia AI Impact Summit 2026. The incident unfolded onstage during a group photo with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the clip has since been circulating widely online. While social media quickly turned the moment into speculation about AI rivalries, Altman says the reality was far less dramatic and mostly just confusion.
The moment took place during the summit’s inaugural session when several global tech leaders gathered for a group photograph. Alongside Altman and Amodei were Sundar Pichai, Alexandr Wang, Pratyush Kumar and Demis Hassabis. In the now-viral clip, many leaders raised their hands as cameras flashed. However, Altman and Amodei appeared momentarily out of sync with the rest of the group, briefly lifting their fists instead. Thevisualquickly sparked chatter online, with some viewers reading it as an intentional snub between the two AI leaders.
Responding to the incident, Altman downplayed the speculation. Speaking to news agency PTI, he said, “I didn’t know what was happening. I was sort of confused and didn’t know what I was supposed to do.” He added that Prime Minister Modi had lifted his hand during the photo, which contributed to the uncertainty about the expected pose. Altman even joked that he initially thought it was “the open clock,” suggesting the mix-up was more awkward than adversarial.
The moment drew extra attention because of Amodei’s history with OpenAI. Before co-founding Anthropic, he spent several years at OpenAI, joining in 2016 and eventually serving as Vice President of Research. During his tenure, he helped lead work on GPT-2 and GPT-3, models that significantly accelerated mainstream interest in generative AI. Amodei left OpenAI in 2021 following reported disagreements over the company’s direction, later launching Anthropic and its Claude AI models. That shared history has often put the two leaders under the spotlight whenever they appear together publicly.
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