Sacked OpenAI boss Sam Altman is returning less than a week after he was ousted.
The maker of Chat GPT said its co-founder would come back as chief executive under a new board.
It follows days of uncertainty after 747 of its 770 employees – some 97 per cent – threatened to quit unless Altman was reinstated and the board step down.
Greg Brockman, the co-founder and president who left last week after Altman was fired, will also return, to work under a new board including former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and ex-Salesforce chief executive Bret Taylor.
The decision to remove Altman last Friday sparked an immediate backlash from staff and shareholders. This included Microsoft, which owns around 49 per cent of the company.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI said its co-founder Sam Altman (pictured) would come back as chief exec under the direction of a new board
After a tumultuous weekend where the board tried to reinstall Altman, Microsoft said on Monday that it had hired Altman and Brockman for its ‘advanced AI research’ unit.
Yet in a rollercoaster sequence of events, nearly all the 770-strong OpenAI workforce came out to say they would defect to Microsoft if Altman was not brought back.
The coup left the board in crisis and the future of the business unclear.
But in the latest twist in the saga, OpenAI confirmed yesterday that it has lured Altman and Brockman back by booting out the majority of the old board.
Helen Toner, who left the board with OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley as part of the deal, posted on X: ‘And now, we all get some sleep.’ Microsoft chief Satya Nadella said he was ‘encouraged’ by the changes at OpenAI.
‘We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance. Sam, Greg, and I have talked and agreed they have a key role to play along with the leadership in ensuring OpenAI continues to thrive and build on its mission,’ he said on X.
Brockman posted an image of himself with OpenAI staff with the message: ‘We are so back.’
The business was set up in 2015 as a non-profit AI research organisation, with founding members including tech billionaire Elon Musk.
OpenAI has exploded in popularity thanks to its AI chatbot ChatGPT, which can pass exams and write poems, books and software code. It has the potential to make billions of dollars for its creators and investors.
- Sam Altman was watching an F1 motor race in Las Vegas when he discovered he was being sacked. He had to take a Google Meet call at a hotel, said the Wall Street Journal.
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