OpenAI’s high-profile chief executive Sam Altman, who became the face of the artificial intelligence boom in the tech industry, has been ousted from the company by its board of directors, OpenAI said in a blog post Friday afternoon.
Mira Muratti, who previously served as the company’s chief technology officer, has been named interim chief executive officer, the company said.
“Mr. Altman’s departure follows a thoughtful review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, which hindered his ability to discharge his responsibilities,” the company said. “The Board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue to lead OpenAI.”
The move is a stunning fall for Mr. Altman, 38, who last year became one of the tech industry’s most prominent executives as well as one of its most fascinating characters. Last fall, OpenAI started an industry-wide AI craze by releasing the online chatbot ChatGPT.
A longtime tech entrepreneur, Mr. Altman helped found OpenAI in 2015 with financial backing from Elon Musk. He catapulted the small San Francisco company into rarefied territory – a technology leader funded by billions of dollars from Microsoft and the envy of Silicon Valley giants like Google. and Meta, Facebook’s parent company.
Mr. Altman also became a spokesperson for the tech industry’s shift toward AI, testifying before Congress and engaging lawmakers and regulators around the world. Many in the industry believe AI is the biggest technology shift in generations, and no one has done more to generate mainstream enthusiasm for it than Mr. Altman.
It was not immediately clear what reasons OpenAI’s board made the decision beyond what it said in its statement. Mr. Altman could not immediately be reached for comment. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, he wrote: “I loved my time at OpenAI. It was a little transformative for me personally and hopefully for the world. Most of all I liked working with such talented people. “There will be more to say later about what lies ahead.”
On Thursday evening, Mr. Altman appeared at an event in Oakland, California, where he discussed the future of art and artists now that artificial intelligence can generate images, videos, sounds and other forms of art on its own. While giving no indication that he was leaving OpenAI, he repeatedly said that he and the company would continue to work with artists and help ensure they have a bright future.
Earlier in the day, he appeared at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit in San Francisco with Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and chairman of Emerson Collective, and executives from Meta and Google.
Greg Brockman, who helped found OpenAI with Mr. Altman, will step down as chairman of the board but will remain in his role as company president, reporting to the CEO, the company said.
When OpenAI released ChatGPT last November, the chatbot attracted millions of users, surprising people with the way it answered questions, wrote poetry, and discussed almost any topic.
Following the success of chatbots, the broader tech industry adopted what is called generative artificial intelligence – technologies that can generate text, images and other media on their own. The result of more than a decade of research inside companies like OpenAI and Google, these technologies are poised to remake everything from email programs to Internet search engines to digital tutors.
OpenAI is in talks to close a new funding round that would value the company at more than $80 billion — nearly tripling its valuation in less than a year — and it’s unclear whether Mr. Altman will. What would K’s departure mean for those talks?
But his removal is a blow to Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in OpenAI and has a 49 percent stake in the company. Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella unveiled a detailed plan this year to use technology developed in OpenAI in nearly all of Microsoft’s products, from the Bing search engine to its widely used business software. Mr Altman joined them at a press event to announce the plans.
Microsoft said Friday afternoon that it planned to continue working closely with OpenAI.
“We have a long-standing partnership with OpenAI, and Microsoft is committed to Mira and his team as we bring this next era of AI to our customers,” company spokesman Frank Shaw said in a statement. After the announcement of Mr. Altman’s departure, Microsoft’s share price fell more than 1 percent in the last 30 minutes of trading.
OpenAI’s four-member board of directors is a mix of respected AI researchers, technology executives, and AI policy experts, including the company’s chief scientist and co-founder Ilya Sutskever and Q&A chief executive Adam D’Angelo. Site Quora. Board members could not immediately be reached for comment.
Current and former OpenAI employees were shocked by this news. On a recent Friday morning, they were talking about Mr. Altman as if he had a long future with the company. Researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors outside the company were equally surprised, with many racking their brains to determine why OpenAI made its decision.
