- Why Sam Altman was fired as OpenAI CEO last year remains a mystery.
- So too does the identity of who actually triggered that ousting.
- New details from The New York Times suggest OpenAI’s CTO was involved, though she denies this.
The plot just got thicker with the dramatic ouster of Sam Altman.
Almost four months after his shock-firing as OpenAI’s CEO on a Friday evening in November, new details have emerged that raise more questions than answers about the whole saga that saw him eventually return.
As a reminder, these are the key characters involved in a saga already steeped in mystery.
First, we have OpenAI’s original board. It publicly announced Altman’s departure on November 17 after a “deliberative review process” that concluded “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board.”
Next, we have Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI cofounder who also served as the company’s chief scientist and board member. He played an instrumental role in the board’s decision to fire Altman but claimed to “deeply regret” his involvement in the firing just days afterward.
Sutskever was believed to have concerns about the pace with which Altman wanted to accelerate AI development and commercialization.
He was also the one who offered angry employees explanations for why Altman was fired. The most significant reason appears to have been that Altman gave two board members differing views on a “member of personnel.”
Then there’s Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer. She was appointed interim CEO after Altman’s firing. Upon the news of Altman’s return as CEO, she shared that she “couldn’t be happier to be back at work” alongside Altman.
Now, here’s where things get weird.
A bombshell report published by The New York Times on Thursday claimed that Murati voluntarily approached OpenAI’s board after writing a “private memo” to Altman expressing concerns about his management.
According to the report, which cited sources familiar with the board’s discussions, Murati’s move helped trigger the decision to oust the OpenAI CEO, with it coming at a similar time that concerns about Altman were raised by Sutskever.
As The Times notes, Murati “described what some considered to be Mr. Altman’s playbook, which included manipulating executives to get what he wanted,” and undermining “the credibility of people who challenged him.”
OpenAI did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment, but it’s clear that a lot of things aren’t adding up right now.
The biggest mystery remains the question of why Altman was fired in the first place.
As the person who introduced ChatGPT to the world, Altman has become the poster child of today’s AI mania, with his company’s work fueling billions of dollars of investment into the technology. It’s why his firing was puzzling to so many.
Was it because of genuine concerns Sutskever and the board had about the pace of AI development? As a New Yorker article reported, was it because Altman played board members off of each other when discussing issues he had with another board member?
Answers to those questions might become clearer when details from a review of Altman are revealed by US law firm WilmerHale. According to The Times, those details are imminent. An SEC investigation scrutinizing internal communications at OpenAI might also she some light.
But there is an equally compelling mystery now about who exactly prompted all of this in the first place. Was it OpenAI’s board? Was it Sutskever? Murati?
Hours after The Times published its report on Murati, the OpenAI CTO wrote a message on the company’s Slack saying she finds it “frustrating that some people seem to want to cause chaos” and that she has a “strong and productive partnership” with Altman.
Curiously, she denied ever reaching out to OpenAI’s board to give feedback on Altman, and that she instead gave feedback when individual board members approached her instead.
If things don’t feel weird already, get a load of this. Alex Weingarten, the lawyer representing Sutskever — the same Sutskever who publicly regretted his involvement in Altman’s firing — told The Times that claims he approached the board were “categorically false.”
Silicon Valley’s biggest mystery just got deeper.