After being fired five days ago, which sent OpenAI on one of the wildest rollercoaster trips in tech history, Sam Altman is back at the business as CEO. According to sources close to The Verge, former president Greg Brockman, who quit on Friday in protest, will also make a comeback. The corporation announced in a post on X that the old board had been dissolved and that a new, interim board consisting of Bret Taylor (chair), Larry Summers, and original board member Adam D’Angelo had taken its place.
Although an agreement has been reached “in principle,” all parties still need to approve it. The initial board’s sole responsibility will be to select and vet a permanent board, consisting of up to nine members, to reset OpenAI’s governance. According to The Verge, Altman and Microsoft will probably take up one of those seats.
Altman wrote a follow-up post confirming the details. “With the new board and with Satya’s support, I’m looking forward to returning to OpenAI and building on our strong partnership with [Microsoft],” he stated. This implies that Altman would not be joining Microsoft after all, although he clarified that he believed at the time that his choice “was the best path for me and the team.”
“The alterations made to the OpenAI board are encouraging,” stated Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a different message. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”
In a statement, Thrive Capital, a significant OpenAI backer, described Altman’s return as “the best outcome for the company, its employees, those who build on their technologies and the world at large.” Reportedly involved in Altman’s initial removal, Helen Toner, wrote on social media, “and now, we all get some sleep.”
The last week’s timeline reads a lot like a telenovela. It started late on Friday, November 17, with the unexpected dismissal of CEO Altman, and ended with Brockman’s announcement that we would resign in protest. After that, OpenAI named CTO Mira Murati as CEO-in-waiting. The board’s statement that Altman was let go for not being “consistently candid” in communications was ambiguous and led to further rumours.
Over the weekend, the drama persisted as it was reported that Nadella was “furious” with the move, especially since Microsoft was only notified a few minutes in advance of its public announcement. He said on Saturday that Microsoft “remained committed” to its collaboration with OpenAI, but he also disclosed that he was appointing Altman to lead a new AI branch. Emmett Shear, a co-founder of Twitch, took over as CEO by the end of the weekend, replacing Murati.
In an open letter to the board on Monday, almost the whole workforce of OpenAI threatened to quit and join the new Microsoft division if Altman didn’t return to the firm as CEO. Things weren’t going well when co-founder Ilya Sutskever’s post admitted some of the guilt for the problem, but the board didn’t reply to the letter by the deadline. The situation was made worse by Shear’s promise to resign as CEO and his claim that Altman’s dismissal was “handled very badly.”
According to reports yesterday, Altman was once more in talks with the board to take back the CEO position. Even just a few hours ago, though, it appeared as though Altman would be visiting Microsoft and maybe bringing a large number of OpenAI staff members along. The board of OpenAI apparently caught fire after Shear threatened to resign, which sparked serious talks with Altman and resulted in his declaration today that he would be returning after all.
