The Goop founder’s planned gathering for the OpenAI CEO was postponed following backlash, with a source telling PEOPLE, “The party likely won’t happen.”
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NEED TO KNOW
- Gwyneth Paltrow postponed a private dinner for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman following sharp criticism over the gathering, a source tells PEOPLE
- Critics called Paltrow “tone-deaf” and questioned the optics of Hollywood figures associating with Altman amid concerns about AI’s heavy impact on creative industries
- Paltrow posted memes joking about the backlash but now the event “won’t likely happen,” the source tells PEOPLE
Gwyneth Paltrow’s dinner for billionaire CEO Sam Altman is apparently off — at least for now.
The Goop founder, 53, has postponed the private dinner she had planned to host for the OpenAI CEO, 41, at her Amagansett, N.Y., home on Saturday, Aug. 29, following wide criticism over the gathering, a source tells PEOPLE.
“The event was postponed for the time being because of the backlash. The party likely won’t happen,” says the source.
The dinner first made headlines earlier this month after Puck’s Matthew Belloni reported that Paltrow planned to host an intimate, “private, off-the-record” al fresco dinner in Altman’s honor. The invitation quickly circulated online, prompting sharp criticism of Oscar winner’s decision to publicly associate herself with the OpenAI chief at a time when Hollywood’s relationship with artificial intelligence remains particularly fraught.
The backlash wasn’t limited to OpenAI’s impending impact on Hollywood. Commenters on X (formerly Twitter) called Paltrow “a villain“ and “tone-deaf,” while comedian-activist Matt Bernstein posted a video suggesting that her affiliations with artificial intelligence amount to “technofascism.” OpenAI owns the popular AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT.
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Paltrow, 53, initially appeared to take the criticism in stride. Rather than directly address the controversy, she shared a series of tongue-in-cheek versions of the invitation on Instagram, swapping Altman’s name for fictional characters including Shrek, M3GAN, Jessica Rabbit and Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones. She also joked about the menu, posting a mocking caption alongside her Hamptons dinner invite memes: “We’re serving swordfish burritos, cheddar foam lattes on request.”
But behind the scenes, the response appears to have changed the calculus around the gathering.
For Altman, 41, the source says the fallout impacts a latest attempt to build relationships across the entertainment community, which has become increasingly skeptical of AI’s impact on creative work.
“Sam isn’t happy with how this is playing out. He does not want to be persona non grata in the Hollywood world. It hurts him that he casts a shadow at high-profile events,” a separate source tells PEOPLE.
PEOPLE has reached out to reps for Paltrow and Altman for comment.
Altman has increasingly moved beyond Silicon Valley’s traditional circles as OpenAI has expanded its cultural footprint, making relationships with Hollywood executives, actors, creators and other influential figures increasingly important. This year he attended the star-studded 2026 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, an invitation that made headlines at the time.
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Paltrow, meanwhile, has established her own connections to the high-tech world. The Goop founder is an investor in AI companies and has incorporated conversations about emerging technology into her business and podcast. Earlier this year, she also interviewed Trae Stephens, a partner at a defense technology company Anduril, for the Goop Podcast. “Gwyneth Paltrow Just Goopified Drone Warfare,” read subsequent a Mother Jones headline.
The event was originally expected to take place at Paltrow’s home in Amagansett, with cocktails followed by a seated dinner. Neither Paltrow nor OpenAI had publicly confirmed the gathering when news of the plans first emerged.
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