The co-founder and president of OpenAI abruptly quit late Friday, hours after the shocking firing of CEO Sam Altman just hours earlier.
“We have been through difficult and great times together and achieved so much, even though it should have been impossible for all reasons. But judging by today’s news, I have resigned,” said Greg Brockman announced on X
The statement came after Altman was fired from the company he had built into a leading force in the artificial intelligence industry.
“Mr. “Altman’s departure follows an advisory review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, which prevented him from fulfilling his responsibilities,” the company said in a blog post. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue to lead OpenAI.”
The board did not comment on Altman’s alleged lack of candor and declined to answer further questions about the explosive shakeup.
Altman did not immediately return a call from The Daily Beast, but in a post to X on Friday afternoon he confirmed his ouster and wrote: “I enjoyed my time at Openai. It changed me personally and hopefully the world a little. What I enjoyed most was working with such talented people. I’ll have more to say about what’s next later.” He ended the post with a “saluting” emoji.
Brockman separately Posted on attended a virtual meeting where he was subsequently told that he was “being fired and that the news would be made public very soon.”
OpenAI’s board of directors appointed Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati as interim CEO.
The news reportedly shocked OpenAI employees, who first heard about the news when it was announced publicly, according to The Verge.
Microsoft, a major investor in the company, told the outlet that it will continue to work with OpenAI and remains “committed to Mira and her team as we deliver this next era of AI to our customers.” However, the tech giant was reportedly “blindsided” by the news and found out about it shortly before the announcement.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, addressed the situation in a post and remains committed to our partnership.”
According to tech outlet The Information, Sutskever tried to calm employees during a meeting on Friday, telling them that the commotion would ultimately “make us feel closer.”
Altman came to OpenAI after serving as president of the well-known startup incubator Y-Combinator and founding his own startup Loopt. The AI company rose to prominence with the launch of ChatGPT, an extremely popular AI chatbot. The company’s latest product, ChatGPT Plus, was so popular that it was Pause registrations earlier this month.
In addition to his role as CEO of OpenAI, Altman, 38, served as something of a public face for the artificial intelligence industry. On what New York Magazine called a “world tour” this spring, Altman met with the heads of state of France, Spain, India, South Korea, Germany and the United Kingdom. He also testified before the US Congress about the potential risks and benefits from AI technology and attended the White House dinner.
Just a day before his firing, Altman appeared on behalf of OpenAI at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit in San Francisco, where he continued to promote AI.
“I think this will be the most transformative and beneficial technology ever invented,” he said, adding that new technologies like ChatGPT “are like the ‘Star Trek’ computer I was always promised.”
Although OpenAI began as a nonprofit organization and launched in 2015 with large donations from Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, and others, OpenAI shifted to a for-profit model in 2019 to attract venture capital. The move frustrated donors like Musk, who tweeted Earlier this year: “I’m still confused about how a nonprofit to which I donated about $100 million somehow became a for-profit organization with a market cap of $30 billion.” If that’s legal, Then why doesn’t everyone do it?”
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who is building his own AI initiative, called Altman a “hero” in a tweet on Friday.
“He built a company from nothing to a value of $90 billion and changed our shared world forever,” he wrote. “I can’t wait to see what he does next. I and billions of people will benefit from his future work – it will be incredible.”