Eight years after Sam Altman co-founded OpenAI, the company's board of directors removed the well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur Friday as its chief executive and appointed an interim CEO.
OpenAI, widely viewed as a leading presence in the burgeoning artificial intelligence sector and one of the world's most valuable privately held companies, said the company's current CTO, Mira Murati, would take over as interim CEO immediately.
"Mr. Altman’s departure follows 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. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI," the company wrote in a blog post announcing the news.
OpenAI's chief scientist and co-founder Ilya Sutskever is a member of the board, which also includes independent directors Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of Quora; robotics entrepreneur Tasha McCauley; and academic Helen Toner, an AI expert.
OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman resigned within hours of the board's decision to remove Altman.
In its original announcement, the board said that Brockman would step down as chairman but remain at the company and report to Murati.
Altman was previously a co-chair of the board with Elon Musk when OpenAI launched in 2015.
By 2018, Musk left OpenAI amid a reported power struggle and dispute over how the organization should be run.
LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman was also an early backer of OpenAI but stepped down from the board earlier this year to avoid conflicts of interest as he pursued other investments in AI.
After the news broke about the board's decision, Altman wrote 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."
Altman has been on a whirlwind global tour over the past year promoting OpenAI and its mission, as well as warning about the dangers and risks of developing so-called artificial general intelligence software.
He spoke at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference in September and also appeared as a speaker during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco just one day prior to his exit from the company. APEC organizers frequently touted his presence at the summit in the run-up to the event as part of the conference's efforts to connect global leaders with the region's vibrant tech sector.
OpenAI has raised at least $12 billion since 2015, according to an analysis by the San Francisco Business Times, mostly from Microsoft which has poured at least $10 billion into the company.
In October, Bloomberg News reported that OpenAI was seeking an $86 billion internal valuation so employees could sell their shares, potentially making it the most valuable private company globally.
On Sunday, the Financial Times reported that OpenAI was seeking even more funding.
The Microsoft partnership was “working really well,” Altman told the Financial Times in the Sunday article, and added that he expected "to raise a lot more over time” from Microsoft and other investors.
Altman's firing also comes at a time when OpenAI is developing the next iteration of its chatbot, ChatGPT. The version that is currently released publicly is powered by its fourth iteration, or GPT-4. OpenAI is working on GPT-5.
OpenAI also held its first developer conference on Nov. 6 in San Francisco. During the event, Altman announced that OpenAI would launch an app store later in November for GPT bots, according to the Verge.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also made an appearance at the conference where, according to the Verge, he said: “We love you guys ... You guys have built something magical."
Altman responded: “I’m excited for us to build AGI together," referring to artificial general intelligence, a state where AI can perform many tasks better than humans. Microsoft's agreement with OpenAI has some licensing provisions that terminate when OpenAI's board determines that AGI has been achieved.
