OpenAI chief Sam Altman becomes the first to get Indonesia’s ‘Golden Visa’

Indonesia has awarded OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman its first “Golden Visa” — a week after the scheme was launched to attract foreign investment to Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

“There are several categories of golden visas apart from those based on investment/capital investment, one of which is the golden visa which is given to figures who have an international reputation and can provide benefits for Indonesia,” Silmy Karim, Indonesia’s director general of immigration, said in a statement.

“With this golden visa, the hope is that Altman can contribute towards the development and use of AI in Indonesia,” Karim said.

Altman’s “Golden Visa” is for 10 years. As a golden visa holder, the American entrepreneur will get to enjoy priority screening at airports across the country’s vast archipelago, along with longer periods of stay and ease of entry and exit.

Altman, who co-founded ChatGPT maker OpenAI with Elon Musk, was in Indonesia earlier his year as part of a whirlwind tour that took him to several major cities in Asia, including Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul and Singapore.

ChatGPT is the AI chatbot that has gone viral for its ability to generate humanlike responses to users’ prompts. Just two months after its launch, it hit 100 million users.

Altman and other tech leaders recently warned in an open letter that AI poses a human extinction risk on par with nuclear war and stressed that reducing the risks associated with the technology should be a global priority.

— CNBC’s Roshan Vaswani contributed to this report.