Sam Altman to return as OpenAI boss
OpenAI has announced that it is bringing back co-founder Sam Altman as Chief Executive just days after he was fired by the board.
The tech company added that the agreement “in principle” involves new board members being appointed in a move that could bring sharper scrutiny to the startup at the heart of the AI boom.
Mr Altman’s sacking on Friday astonished industry watchers and led to staff threatening mass resignations unless he was reinstated.
“I am looking forward to returning to OpenAI,” Mr Altman said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
He added: “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.
Last week, the board decided to remove Mr Altman, which led to co-founder Greg Brockman’s resignation, sending the star artificial intelligence (AI) company into chaos.
The decision was made by the three non-employee board members, Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner, and a third co-founder and the firm’s chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
But on Monday Mr Sutskever apologised on X, and signed the staff letter calling on the board to reverse course.
Microsoft, which uses OpenAI technology in many of its products – and is its biggest investor – then offered Mr Altman a job leading “a new advanced AI research team” at the tech giant.
Then on Wednesday, OpenAI said it had agreed Mr Altman’s return to the tech company in principle, and that it would partly reconstitute the board of directors that had dismissed him.
Former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and former US treasury secretary Larry Summers will join current director Adam D’Angelo, OpenAI said.
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In a post on X, Mr Brockman also said he would be returning to the firm.
Emmett Shear, who had been appointed OpenAI’s interim chief executive, said he was “deeply pleased” by Mr Altman’s return after about “72 very intense hours of work”.
Microsoft boss Satya Nadella said the firm was “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.”
Many staff, posting online, have been enthusiastic about the development: “We’re back – and we’ll be better than ever”, wrote employee Cory Decareaux on Linkedin.
“This has been the craziest past few days – crazier than I ever could’ve imagined. This is an example of what a united company culture looks like.”
Others, though, suggest the episode has been damaging to OpenAI which – by creating the chatbot ChatGPT – became arguably the most important AI firm in the world.
“OpenAI can’t be the same company it was up until Friday night. That has implications not only for potential investors but also for recruitment”, Nick Patience of S&P Global Market Intelligence said.
Many businesses and projects now rely on OpenAI’s technology.
One project, Be My Eyes, worked with the firm to develop an AI-powered assistant for blind and partially-sighted people.
Its chief executive Michael Buckley wrote on LinkedIn that he had been “bombarded by sales calls from rival [AI] companies seeking some opportunistic business wins” but he said they would be sticking with OpenAI because,”they prioritized accessibility” even though it was “close to meaningless for them from a revenue perspective”.
