Since Friday, a non-stop flurry about OpenAI’s executive and restructuring moves dominated tech talk and stocks. Mere days after being ousted as the company’s chief executive officer (CEO), Sam Altman returned to the company in his former capacity late on Tuesday. This short timeline sees Altman being fired on Friday after the OpenAI board decided he was not transparent in his communications. Greg Brockman, the company’s then-president, walked out with Altman, and by Sunday, both had joined Microsoft’s research team. Following this, the tech giant’s shares rose by 1% in pre-market trading.
Altman returns as OpenAI CEO
The innovators of ChatGPT responded by headhunting and hiring Emmett Shear, the former head of the Twitch streaming site. This debacle led to 700 employees putting their names to paper, threatening to leave the company and join Microsoft (MSFT.O) if Altman was not reinstated. The newly appointed interim CEO Mira Murati took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to advocate for Altman’s return and posted:
OpenAI is nothing without its people
It seems the peer pressure worked, as Altman posted the following on X late yesterday afternoon:
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. … i’m looking forward to returning to openai, and building on our strong partnership with msft.
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The Altman return also hails in a new board with former salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor at the helm. A Reuters exclusive report alleges several staff researchers wrote a letter to the board, warning them of a powerful AI discovery that could threaten humanity. This letter is unconfirmed but is rumoured to have instigated the Altman ousting.
