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SAN FRANCISCO – Sam Altman, fired from his role at ChatGPT maker OpenAI on Friday, will return to his post as chief executive, ending a boardroom drama that has roiled Silicon Valley and exposed power struggles over who is in control about the future of artificial intelligence.
The company will have an initial board of directors consisting of Bret Taylor, the former CEO of Twitter before its acquisition by Elon Musk, Larry Summers, the former US Treasury Secretary, and Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of Quora and a board member , which voted to oust Altman, OpenAI said in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“We have agreed in principle that Sam will return to OpenAI as CEO,” the statement said. “We are working together to figure out the details. Thank you for your patience.”
Altman’s return puts an end to almost a week of chaos in the AI company. His firing last Friday shocked much of the tech industry, including OpenAI’s own investors and employees, who launched a campaign to get him back. On Sunday evening, Altman agreed to join Microsoft instead, but the next day both he and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella signaled that they were still open to returning to OpenAI. On Monday, nearly all of the company’s roughly 770 employees signed a letter saying they would resign if he wasn’t reinstated.
Under the latest agreement, Altman will not have a seat on the new board, and the board agreed to an independent investigation that will examine all aspects of recent events, including Altman’s role, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to the condition anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Altman was fired, with the board saying only that he had been dishonest in his conversations with board members.
The initial three-member board will consider and appoint a formal board of up to nine members, another person familiar with the matter said. Ilya Sutskever, Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, the three other board members who sought to oust Altman along with D’Angelo, will be leaving the board, the person said. Emmett Shear, who was initially named interim CEO to replace Altman, will also be leaving the company, this person said.
Greg Brockman, who resigned Friday in solidarity with Altman, said on X that he was returning to the company.
An OpenAI spokesperson declined to comment further.
“I love OpenAI and everything I have done over the last few days has been to hold this team and its mission together,” Altman said on X. “When I decided to join [Microsoft] On Sunday evening it was clear that this was the best path for me and the team. With the new board and [with] Thanks to Satya’s support, I look forward to returning to OpenAI and building on our strong partnership [Microsoft]Altman said on X.
The drama surrounding Altman’s sudden ouster at OpenAI has exposed the deep divide within the company over who should control its future. OpenAI started as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, but in recent years under Altman’s leadership has raised billions of dollars in investments from companies like tech giant Microsoft and venture capitalists and begun developing consumer products. External critics and some employees feared the company had abandoned its mission and was behaving more like a Big Tech company. It was originally intended to offer a more transparent, democratic alternative to Big Tech.
Altman’s return will be greeted with relief by investors, customers and employees who feared the boardroom drama could lead to the company’s implosion. If that had happened, it would have left a vacuum at the center of the AI industry and given competitors like Google and AI startup Anthropic the opportunity to gain momentum.
Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s largest investor and uses its technology in its own AI products, will also benefit from a stabilized OpenAI and the return of Altman.
“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. “We believe this is an essential first step toward more stable, better informed and more effective governance,” Nadella said in a statement on X. “We look forward to building on our strong partnership and the value of this next generation “To deliver AI for our customers and partners.”
In San Francisco’s Mission District, employees celebrated Altman’s return, a person familiar with the matter said.