Sam Altman is set to be reappointed as CEO at OpenAI — less than a week after the ChatGPT firm’s board voted to sack him.
OpenAI has announced an agreement “in principle” with Altman that will see him return to the company he founded in 2015. He was sacked on Friday in a move that shocked industry figures.
“I am looking forward to returning to OpenAI,” Altman said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
News of his sacking led to OpenAI shares plummeting and staff threatening mass resignations unless he was reinstated. His sacking also prompted his co-founder Greg Brockman to resign from his role as president at the AI firm, plunging it into chaos. Brockman is also set to return.
Both Brockman and Altman then announced they would be joining Microsoft — a key investor and partner of OpenAI — to head up its advanced AI research team. The Microsoft announcement came after weekend talks broke down between Altman and OpenAI’s four-person board about reversing its decision.
Under the agreement, Altman will serve under the supervision of a new board of directors, which will include Salesforce chief executive Bret Taylor as chair; former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers; and Adam D’Angelo, an existing OpenAI board member, and chief executive of question-and-answer platform Quora.
“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,” Altman said.
Emmett Shear, who had been appointed OpenAI’s interim chief executive, said he was “deeply pleased” by Altman’s return after about “72 very intense hours of work”.
The reappointment was also backed by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who said his firm was “encouraged by the changes to OpenAI board”.
“We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”
The reasons for Altman’s initial sacking remain unclear. According to reports from the Financial Times, the decision was taken by the three non-employee board members D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner, and a third co-founder and the firm’s chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
Sutskever has since apologised to staff on X, saying he had signed a staff letter calling for Altman’s reinstatement.
In a blog post the board accused Mr Altman of not being “consistently candid in his communications” and said as a result they had “lost confidence” in his leadership.
There are reports that Altman was considering some hardware projects, including the funding and development of an AI chip, which would have been quite a different direction in which to take OpenAI.
There have also been question marks around the future of the company that shook the world with the launch of ChatGPT last year. Initially, OpenAI was set up as a non-profit, backed by the likes of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, but in 2019 it launched a new, profit-orientated arm.
This is all happening in an environment where technologists disagree about the future of AI, with some warning of the threats it could pose to humanity, while others, including Altman, spurring on the pace of development.
Musk himself has called for more clarity on what led to Altman’s sacking, challenging Sutskever directly over his involvement, and saying the company and board members must “say something”.
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