OpenClaw creator spent $10 million on AI tokens last month
It must be nice to have so much money to spend.
OpenClaw is an AI assistant that wants to become a tool people use every day. But if it uses as many AI tokens as its creator, Pete Steinberger, users could end up paying very large bills. AI tokens are small pieces of text that AI systems process, and using more of them can cost more money.
Steinberger, who now works for OpenAI, said he spent $10 million on AI tokens there last month. He shared this with Cloudflare CEO Dane Knecht at the Cloudflare Connect 2026 Conference in San Francisco.
The Register reported their conversation. Knecht pointed out that Steinberger had an almost unlimited budget for AI tokens, unlike many people at the conference. Steinberger replied that people do not always understand that not all of those tokens produce useful results.
Steinberger also questioned whether companies had good enough technology systems to support AI. He wondered why the AI was still running on his own computer instead of using computers in the cloud.
But moving more AI work to the cloud would add extra costs. It could also raise privacy concerns. These problems would probably not make the audience feel any better.
The conversation was unlikely to make chief financial officers (CFOs), the people responsible for company finances, feel better either. Many were already worried about how much AI tokens really cost, whether companies were choosing the best way to bring AI into their systems, and whether there were better ways to control AI spending. However, spending such huge amounts of money on AI might be good news for Steinberger's employer, OpenAI. The company is preparing for an upcoming initial public offering (IPO), when it plans to offer shares to public investors.
This article was first published on InfoWorld.