Altman was very wealthy before OpenAI, and he declined to take any equity in OpenAI. How does that fit your theory?

Is the only wealth represented in money? If that was the case than the vast majority of these people could have wrapped it up and left the game years ago.

Power is the game.

This explains nothing. Money buys a lot of power, and he could have easily just had both.

Nah, money doesn’t buy ALL power.

Only power of a certain kind (read ownership of a system that many rely on) can’t be bought.

Again, this misses the point. Why did he turn down an equity stake that likely would have been worth hundreds of billions? It's not like it would have jeopardized the power you're talking about.

If anything that proves the point. The power wasn’t in the money (which he already had plenty of, as you say).