OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, brought back its co-founder and CEO Sam Altman days after removing him.
The Silicon Valley enterprise, which was facing the prospect of a staff revolt and possible legal action by investors over the firing, announced an “agreement in principle” for Altman’s return late Tuesday, Pacific time.
Greg Brockman, another co-founder and president of OpenAI who quit after Altman’s ouster, also said he was coming back and “getting back to coding tonight.”
Part of the deal, as explained by OpenAI in a post to X, involved putting together a “new initial board” with former Salesforce.com CEO Bret Taylor as chairman and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers as a member.
The post also said Adam D’Angelo, co-founder of question-and-answer platform Quora and independent director of the board that fired Altman, would stay on and serve as a member of the new board.
“We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this,” OpenAI concluded.
Altman, who served as president of startup accelerator Y Combinator and had led OpenAI since 2019, was abruptly let go on Friday.
In announcing the move, the OpenAI’s board claimed Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.” The New York Times reported there had been tensions between Altman and the board on the issue of striking a balance between artificial intelligence safety and expansion.
A power struggle ensued over the weekend that reportedly included the interim CEO — technology chief Mira Murati — trying to to rehire Altman and Brockman while the board picked former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear to lead the company.
Hundreds of OpenAI employees signed a letter demanding the board of directors resign, get replaced by a new board, and reinstate Altman and Greg Brockman. The employees also said they might follow Altman and Brockman to Microsoft, one of OpenAI’s investors that hired the pair to lead an in-house artificial intelligence research unit after their departure from OpenAI.
One person who signed the letter was Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist and a member of the company’s board. “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company,” Sutskever said in a post to X.
Altman shared a post to X on Wednesday explaining his view of the situation.
“i love openai, and everything i’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together. when i decided to join [Microsoft] on sun evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team. with the new board and [with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s] support, i’m looking forward to returning to openai, and building on our strong partnership with [Microsoft],” he said.
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Nadella replied with a post that said, “We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance. Sam, Greg, and I have talked and agreed they have a key role to play along with the OAI leadership team in ensuring OAI continues to thrive and build on its mission. We look forward to building on our strong partnership and delivering the value of this next generation of AI to our customers and partners.”