Any additional backlash that Gwyneth Paltrow may face for hosting a dinner with OpenAI‘s CEO Sam Altman will have to wait a little longer, as news arrived Friday that her much-discussed dinner in the Hamptons to honor OpenAI’s Sam Altman — originally set for this weekend — has been postponed
When journalist Matthew Belloni broke the news of Paltrow’s upcoming dinner party last week in his Puck newsletter, a groan went up from some corners of the internet. The idea of the nepo-baby-turned-wellness-mogul cozying up to Altman, the onetime boy wonder of the AI world who, after being accused of “deceptive and chaotic behavior,” has just as quickly fallen out of public favor, struck plenty of people as a little too on the nose
“I guess summers in the Hamptons just aren’t complete these days without sucking up to our new A.I. overlords. Luckily, Gwyneth Paltrow has you covered,” Belloni wrote, sarcastically. Paltrow was also accused on X of honoring a man who runs a company that is “actively replacing” writers and actors
But then — surprisingly, or maybe not, if you’ve been watching Paltrow closely — she struck back at the haters. In what appears to be an AI-generated bit, the Shakespeare in Lovestar turned Goop founder posted to Instagram a tongue-in-cheek series of dinner party invitations honoring cinema’s murderous AI robot M3GAN, Sex and the City siren Samantha Jones, Shrek, Jessica Rabbit and Chanty Beluga, the viral meme character
“We’re serving swordfish burritos, Cheddar foam lattes on request,” she captioned the post — a fittingly idiosyncratic menu from the actor and businesswoman who grew up among Hollywood elite, spending summers in France with her actor mother and director father (and whose godfather, lest we forget, is Steven Spielberg)
But the dinner — sure to send close watchers of the pair spinning — was postponed Friday, according to a report in the New York Times. No new date has been set, but people familiar with the matter told the Times it will happen within the next few weeks
So how did these two polarizing figures end up on the same guest list at a posh East Coast enclave in the first place? It turns out Paltrow isn’t just a savvy internet presence — she’s also an investor in Altman’s company, having backed OpenAI in 2023 through Kindred Ventures, a fund with stakes in fintech and other sectors
Paltrow is also friendly with OpenAI’s vice president of global creative partnerships, Charles Porch, who the Times reports was central to arranging the dinner in his boss’ honor
If the Long Island dinner does happen, Altman might do well to study his host closely as they dine in her hometown of Amagansett, New York, among a hand-picked group of admirers. A Luca Guadagnino film, Artificial, which covers the tumultuous 2023 period in which Altman, amid AI safety concerns and reports of abusive behavior, was fired and rehired by OpenAI within a matter of days, is expected to be released this year. Some keen advice from an industry survivor like Paltrow on how to laugh off the haters could come in handy.
