All About Sam Altman's Cryptic Post On ChatGPT's 'Gift' That Turns Selfie Into Santa Message

The recent social media post by Sam Altman drew huge attention. It was accompanied by a gift emoji.

21 Dec 2025, 16:16 · www.ndtv.com

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed a festive Easter egg in the ChatGPT app, which would allow users to transform their selfie into a personalised Santa-themed video message. This innovative feature combines image recognition with AI-generated video, creating a fun and interactive holiday experience.

"Here is a little hint," Altman wrote on X (formerly Twitter). The cryptic post drew huge attention as it was accompanied by a gift emoji. The post was viewed nearly two million times, with social media users rushing to the comment section to ask what it was about.

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See the post here:

In the comment section, the user attempted to decode what he tried to convey. "I think I figured it out," said one user, asking others to paste the gift emoji into the ChatGPT chat.

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Here's the step to create Santa's message:

1. Open the ChatGPT mobile app and send the gift emoji

2. Upload or take a selfie when prompted.

3. ChatGPT's Sora video-generation model creates a personalised Santa video message.

Some users tried the feature and shared their experience. The video features Santa Claus delivering a playful verdict on users' behaviour, based on their past interactions with ChatGPT. The user might receive praise and a thoughtful gift or a humorous "naughty" label.

The feature is reportedly available on both Free and Plus user accounts, with Plus subscribers possibly having higher usage limits.

GPT-5.2

Recently, OpenAI launched its GPT-5.2 artificial intelligence model. It came after Altman reportedly issued an internal "code red" in early December, redirecting teams to accelerate development in response to Google's Gemini 3 and put a hold on non-core projects. In a statement, the company said that GPT-5.2 comes with improvements in general intelligence, coding and long-context understanding.

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