OpenAI Co-Founder Sam Altman Says He Raises His Kids With the Help of ChatGPT

Most parents look to the internet for help and advice as they navigate having an infant, then a toddler, and so on. So when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted that he also uses ChatGPT to help him with parenting, it was like a relatable parent moment for people who aren't the leaders of multi-billion-dollar companies. But how many children does Sam Altman have, and who is he married to?

Unlike fellow AI leader Elon Musk, Sam doesn't have a bevy of kids and baby mamas to contend with. However, given that he has opened up about fatherhood and the place of AI in parenting, it might leave some wondering how big a role he allows technology to play in his life as a parent, short of using ChatGPT for advice, and what his plans are for growing his family.

Sam and his husband, Oliver Mulherin, welcomed their son together through a surrogate in February 2025. As of December 2025, the couple has just one child. And, Sam told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, he "cannot imagine" raising a newborn and figuring out what to do without the assistance of AI and ChatGPT specifically.

He shared a story where he asked ChatGPT for advice when he learned that other babies were beginning to crawl before his son. According to Sam, ChatGPT helped dispel his stress about milestones. He told Jimmy that he knows that people have been raising kids forever without the help of AI. It just so happens that he has front row access to that assistance as a dad.

When Sam announced the birth of his son on X (formerly Twitter), Reddit users in a thread made jokes about what "prompt" he used to conceive his child, a clear reference to how ChatGPT works. One user commented, "Working on natural intelligences now. Clever." Despite the jokes, Sam is all about having a big family, though he has just one kid now.

In October 2024, before the birth of his son, he spoke to The San Francisco Standard and said that he was eager to start a family with his husband.

"I am more excited for that than I think I've ever been for anything," he said. When asked how many kids he wants, Sam replied, "Let's start with a few and see how it goes, but maybe a lot." To clarify, he added that "six or eight [kids] would be awesome."

In the same interview with The San Francisco Standard, Sam shared that he and his husband, Oliver, met in 2015 at a party when they were both in relationships. But a connection was made and, in 2024, they got married.

Although Oliver no longer has an active LinkedIn account, according to Newsweek, he is a software engineer. He has also worked with AI, though it's unclear if Sam and Oliver have worked together professionally or if they keep ChatGPT out of their relationship.