Sam Altman won’t return to OpenAI despite company’s overtures, report says
Altman’s sudden departure from the company he co-founded sent shockwaves through the tech sector.
Sam Altman, the ousted CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, will not return to the company he co-founded despite executives’ efforts to bring him back, tech news site The Information has reported.
Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and board director, told staff on Sunday night that Altman would not be coming back after a weekend of negotiations with the board of directors, company leaders and investors, The Information reported on Sunday.
Emmett Shear, co-founder of video streaming site Twitch, will take over as interim CEO, The Information said.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera.
Altman, who became the public face of artificial intelligence with the releases of ChatGPT and GPT-4, was abruptly fired on Friday after the company’s board determined he was “not consistently candid in his communications”.
The announcement of Altman’s departure sent shockwaves through the tech sector and prompted the resignation of OpenAI President and Co-founder Greg Brockman.
Three senior researchers also submitted their resignations following the news, according to The Information.
Altman said in posts on X that his firing was a “weird experience” and “sorta like reading your own eulogy while you’re still alive”, and that “if I start going off, the OpenAI board should go after me for the full value of my shares”.
Unlike other tech founders such as Mark Zuckerberg, Altman did not have equity in OpenAI and could be fired at any time, the news site Semafor reported earlier this year.
On Sunday, Altman posted an image on X of himself wearing an OpenAI guest badge, saying it would be the “first and last time I ever wear one of these”.
Altman, who helped found OpenAI in 2015, has been among the most sought-after voices on the potential benefits and dangers of AI since last year’s release of ChatGPT, speaking at business summits and testifying before the US Congress.
In September, New York Magazine published a profile comparing Altman to J Robert Oppenheimer – known as the father of the atomic bomb – and Time Magazine included the tech entrepreneur on its list of the 100 most influential people in AI in 2023.
