After nearly a week of drama, the OpenAI board has changed its decision and brought back Sam Altman as the CEO, the AI startup said in a post early Wednesday morning on X, formerly known as Twitter. The decision comes after intense pressure from both employees and investors, urging the board to reinstate him, just a week after they had removed him from the position.
As part of the tentative agreement, OpenAI said that Bret Taylor, the former co-CEO of Salesforce, and Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, will be joining the board. Bret Taylor will take on the role of chairman. Adam D’Angelo, co-founder and CEO of Quora, will continue to be a part of the board.
“We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this,” OpenAI said in the X post.
“We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo. We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this,” OpenAI said.
We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo.
We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this.
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) November 22, 2023
On Monday, hundreds of employees, including co-founder and board member Ilya Sutskever, penned a letter stating that if the current board didn’t step down and reinstate Altman, the majority of them would consider shifting to work with him at Microsoft.
Meanwhile, in a post on X, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella applauded the changes made by the OpenAI board saying:
“We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance,” 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.”
https://twitter.com/satyanadella/status/1727207661547233721
The saga started last Friday when Altman was unexpectedly fired by OpenAI’s board without any prior notice, not even to Microsoft, which had invested a substantial $13 billion in the creator of ChatGPT. Brockman resigned in protest, causing significant upheaval at the influential tech company.
