ChatGPT-maker Open AI fires Sam Altman as CEO
NEW YORK: (Web Desk) ChatGPT-maker Open AI said it has pushed out its co-founder and CEO Sam Altman after a review found he was “not consistently candid in his communications” with the board of directors, according to Associated Press (AP).
“The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,” the artificial intelligence company said in a statement.
In the year since Altman catapulted ChatGPT to global fame, he has become Silicon Valley’s sought-after voice on the promise and potential dangers of artificial intelligence and his sudden and mostly unexplained exit brought uncertainty to the industry’s future.
Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, will take over as interim CEO effective immediately, the company said, while it searches for a permanent replacement.
The announcement also said another OpenAI co-founder and top executive, Greg Brockman, the board’s chairman, would step down from that role but remain at the company, where he serves as president. But later on X, formerly Twitter, Brockman posted a message he sent to OpenAI employees in which he wrote, “based on today’s news, i quit.”
After learning today’s news, this is the message I sent to the OpenAI team: https://t.co/NMnG16yFmm pic.twitter.com/8x39P0ejOM
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 18, 2023
In another X post on Friday night, Brockman said Altman was asked to join a video meeting at noon Friday with the company’s board members, minus Brockman, during which OpenAI co-founder and Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever informed Altman he was being fired.
“Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today,” Brockman wrote, adding that he was informed of his removal from the board in a separate call with Sutskever a short time later.
Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today.
Let us first say thank you to all the incredible people who we have worked with at OpenAI, our customers, our investors, and all of those who have been reaching out.
We too are still trying to figure out exactly…
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 18, 2023
OpenAI declined to answer questions on what Altman’s alleged lack of candor was about. The statement said his behavior was hindering the board’s ability to exercise its responsibilities.
Altman posted Friday on X: “i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people. will have more to say about what’s next later.”
i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people.
will have more to say about what’s next later.
🫡
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 17, 2023
The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement allowing OpenAI access to part of the AP’s text archives.
Altman helped start OpenAI as a nonprofit research laboratory in 2015. But it was ChatGPT’s explosion into public consciousness that thrust Altman into the spotlight as a face of generative AI — technology that can produce novel imagery, passages of text and other media. On a world tour this year, he was mobbed by a crowd of adoring fans at an event in London.
