Sam Altman Departs OpenAI

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has been fired as of Friday, November 17, 2023, according to the company. He has since been reinstated.

In a statement from the board, it was claimed that “Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities…The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”

Mira Murati, Chief Technology Officer, will be immediately replacing Altman as interim CEO. The company will conduct a search for a permanent successor to the CEO position.

i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people.

will have more to say about what’s next later.

🫡

— Sam Altman (@sama) November 17, 2023

What’s more, Greg Brockman, President and co-founder, will step down as chairman but remain with the company. Brockman allegedly quit “based on today’s news” according to his post on Twitter/X.

After learning today’s news, this is the message I sent to the OpenAI team: https://t.co/NMnG16yFmm pic.twitter.com/8x39P0ejOM

— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 18, 2023

This is a sudden turn of events, as Altman has been the face of the company that started the AI arms race with the groundbreaking release of ChatGPT. Last week, Altman was the keynote head of the company’s first DevDay conference in which it announced a slew of major updates to compete with the likes of Microsoft and Google. Furthermore, Altman spoke at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference.

As you saw at Microsoft Ignite this week, we're continuing to rapidly innovate for this era of AI, with over 100 announcements across the full tech stack – from AI systems, models, and tools in Azure, to Copilot. Most importantly, we're committed to delivering all of this to our…

— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) November 17, 2023

Microsoft is still committed to partnering with OpenAI, according to CEO Satya Nadella.

Altman still has a vested interest in the field of artificial intelligence, reportedly collaborating with Apple’s former chief design officer Jony Ive about the creation of an AI iPhone. Furthermore, Altman is the largest shareholder of Humane, which recently launched its OpenAI-powered wearable.

Elon Musk served as co-chair of OpenAI alongside Altman but departed in 2018 to avoid conflicts of interest with Tesla. Since then, Musk founded xAI.

Most of the board at OpenAI consists of outsiders. After Altman and Brockman departed, the remaining members include Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, ex-CEO of GeoSim Systems Tasha McCauley, and Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology’s director of strategy Helen Toner.