Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI, has been reinstated as CEO of the artificial intelligence (AI) tech company, just days after his shock firing, capping off a turbulent few days.
Mr. Altman will return as CEO alongside a new board initially chaired by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and current board member Adam D'Angelo, co-founder of Quora.
“We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this,” OpenAI said.
Officials also claimed Mr. Altman had not been “consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” although they stopped short of providing further details regarding his ousting.
Altman Moves to Microsoft
In the meantime, Mr. Altman was quickly snapped up by Microsoft—which is a close partner of OpenAI and has invested more than $10 billion in the company since 2018—just days after his sudden dismissal from OpenAI.At the time, Microsoft said it remained a partner with OpenAI despite the management shuffle.
“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 msft [Microsoft] on sun evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team,” he wrote.
“With the new board and w [with] Satya’s [Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella] support, I’m looking forward to returning to OpenAI and building on our strong partnership with msft,” the tech entrepreneur wrote.
Mr. Nadella also welcomed Mr. Altman’s return as CEO in a post on X Tuesday, writing that the tech giant is “encouraged” by the latest changes to the OpenAI board.
Microsoft ‘Encouraged’ by Altman’s Return
“We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance,” Mr. Nadella wrote. “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.”Mr. Brockman, who had also joined Microsoft in the wake of the turbulence at OpenAI, said he would be getting straight back to coding.
While it is unclear exactly what led to Mr. Altman’s sudden departure from OpenAI, the board stressed his departure followed 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.”
