OpenAI's Sam Altman says DRAM comments taken out of context after Musk jab
In brief
- Sam Altman said on X that his memory comments were taken out of context, Decrypt reported.
- Altman had called idle home DRAM "quite terrible" in a Cheeky Pint YouTube interview.
- Elon Musk mocked Altman with a Hans Landa meme from Inglourious Basterds.
- 16GB DDR5 contract prices rose more than 550% in a year, according to Tom's Hardware data.
What Altman said, and what he says he meant
Altman's original comments came in an interview with YouTube channel Cheeky Pint, where he discussed shortages of memory and other components caused by the AI boom. He said that from a global allocation perspective it was "quite terrible" for people to have DRAM in their own computers that's used 5% of the time. In a supply-constrained environment, he added, you want "maximum utilization in a cloud."
That's not how he wants it read.
In posts on X reported by Decrypt, Altman wrote that he has been "arguing for the world to ramp up memory production for a long time."
I actually do want the world to have tons of memory and people to put as much as they want in their computers, and it is fucking annoying that this was taken out of context," Altman tweeted early Wednesday.
He also leaned into the jokes. Altman said he "lol'd" at one meme, and when a user asked him to rename his account "Ram Altman," he replied "ok yeah" and briefly changed his display name (his own explanation was that he wanted people to have plenty of memory).
Musk's Hans Landa meme
Musk mocked Altman on Sunday with a meme of Inglourious Basterds character Hans Landa asking, "You are withholding DRAM from the cloud, are you not?" according to Decrypt's description of the post. "The people deserve to have their RAM too!" Musk wrote.
In the same Cheeky Pint interview, Altman blamed memory makers for being slow to expand production. He said he'd be "very sad" if prices for chips and other components didn't fall.
A tight memory market
The spat comes during a global memory shortage driven by demand from AI data centers. SK hynix, one of the world's largest memory makers, warned the prior week that memory demand would outstrip supply through 2030. Contract prices for 16GB DDR5 chips rose from $8.70 in October 2025 to $48 in September 2026, an increase of more than 550%, according to Tom's Hardware figures cited by Decrypt.
Team Group CEO Chen Ching-wen didn't sound any more optimistic. On an earnings call, he said there was "no downward price trend whatsoever" and warned some buyers could face a situation where "even money can't buy goods."
Consumer hardware prices have been rising as well. In April, Meta raised the price of its Quest 3 and Quest 3S headsets by $50 to $100, weeks after Sony increased PlayStation 5 prices.
Frequently asked questions
What did Sam Altman originally say about RAM?
In an interview with the Cheeky Pint YouTube channel, Altman said it was "quite terrible" from a global allocation perspective for people to have DRAM in their own computers that's used 5% of the time. He said maximum utilization in a cloud was desirable in a supply-constrained environment.
How much have DDR5 memory prices risen?
According to Tom's Hardware, contract prices for 16GB DDR5 memory chips rose from $8.70 in October 2025 to $48 in September 2026, an increase of more than 550%. SK hynix warned that memory demand would outstrip supply through 2030.
