OpenAI’s luxury influencer ‘Summer Club’ backfires as creators face data center outrage

OpenAI’s first attempt at a classic influencer brand trip has turned into a case study in how not to sell artificial intelligence to a skeptical public. The company flew a handful of creators to a resort in upstate New York for a weekend it called “Summer Club,” complete with farm-to-table meals, beekeeping, and a painting workshop. The goal was straightforward: teach creators how to use ChatGPT Work, the newly released tool for drafting documents and presentations, so they could then show their followers. The execution, however, collided with a much messier reality.

The videos that came out of the retreat were polished and cheerful, but the comment sections told a different story. Viewers accused one influencer of selling her soul “for a nice hotel room” and demanded another reconcile the trip with the environmental cost of AI data centers. A third creator appears to have deleted her video about the retreat entirely after the backlash hit. When TechCrunch asked one commenter why she posted a critical response, she framed it bluntly: “The world is on fire. It’s not a great time to brag about your $5,000-a-night suite.” The pushback is sharper than what similar events have drawn — Anthropic hosted a brand dinner for Claude and Microsoft Copilot ran a Super Bowl trip, neither of which struck this kind of nerve.

OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri told TechCrunch that the event was education-led and designed to give creators hands-on experience so they could demonstrate practical uses of ChatGPT. “Creators are an important part of our community and how people get information and learn about our products today,” Pusateri said, adding that the company welcomes healthy debate. But the timing amplified every grievance. The trip landed just as OpenAI is negotiating a massive $500 billion data center project in Ohio, putting its ecological footprint directly in the crosshairs. The company’s $200 million contract with the Department of Defense also resurfaced in the comments, making the wellness retreat look tone-deaf rather than aspirational.

What makes this moment genuinely significant isn’t that people are mad online — that’s a Tuesday. It’s that OpenAI’s own influencer strategy, led by former Instagram VP of global partnerships Charles Porch, now faces a fundamental tension. The playbook of flying creators to luxury resorts works when you’re selling beauty products or suitcases. But when your product is a technology that millions of people see as a threat to their jobs, their creative work, and their environment, the same playbook reads as provocation. One influencer who attended wrote on LinkedIn that she didn’t “for one second consider it would be controversial.” That miscalculation, more than any single angry comment, is the real story here.