More than three months after OpenAI’s board of directors briefly ousted Sam Altman, the high-profile CEO of the artificial intelligence company, questions remain about what exactly prompted the board to make such a dramatic move.
A report from an outside law firm, expected in the coming days, could shed more light on the board’s decision as well as the chaotic five days before Mr. Altman returns to the company.
But as anticipation grows for the report, previously unreported details are emerging about the role Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, played in Mr Altman’s ouster.
Ms. Murati wrote a private note to Mr. Altman, raising questions about his management and also shared her concerns with the board. That move helped prompt the board’s decision to force him out, according to people with knowledge of the board’s deliberations who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of a personnel matter.
At the same time, Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and chief scientist of OpenAI, raised similar concerns, citing what he described as Mr. Altman’s history of manipulation, the people said. Both executives described a hot-and-cold relationship with Mr. Altman. Although it was not clear if they offered specific examples, executives said he sometimes created a toxic work environment by freezing out executives who did not support his decisions, the people said.
Ms. Murati’s interactions with the board offer insight into problems at OpenAI’s senior levels, although both executives have publicly supported Mr. Altman’s return to the company.
WilmerHale, the law firm conducting the investigation, is expected to complete the process immediately. The company is expected to announce a new board at the same time, some of the people said. Several directors left the board after Mr. Altman returned to the company in November.
Hannah Wong, a spokeswoman for OpenAI, said in a statement that the company’s senior leadership team, led by Ms. Murati during her tenure as interim CEO, unanimously called for Mr. Altman’s return, as did an open letter signed by 95 percent OpenAI employees.
“The strong support from his team highlights that he is an effective CEO who is open to different opinions, willing to solve complex challenges and who shows care for his team,” Ms Wong said. “We look forward to the findings from the independent review against unfounded claims.”
Mr. Altman declined to comment. Mr Sutskever’s lawyer, Alex Weingarten, said claims he had approached the council were “categorically false”.
Ms Murati did not respond to a request for comment. But in a message to OpenAI employees after that article was published, she said she and Mr. Altman “have a strong and productive partnership, and I wasn’t shy about sharing direct feedback with him.”
She added that “when individual board members came to me directly for comments about Sam, I provided them — all comments that Sam already knew,” and that did not mean she was “responsible for or endorsed the actions of the old board.”
(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December for copyright infringement on news content related to AI systems.)
Since November, OpenAI and its investors have been trying to contain the fallout from the incident, which threatened to derail one of the tech industry’s most important startups. OpenAI was valued at more than $80 billion in its latest funding round.
Many of OpenAI’s remaining more than 700 employees – many of whom threatened to quit when Mr Altman was fired – are hoping to put the events of November behind them. (Some employees refer to that period as “The Blip.”)
But there are others who hope the WilmerHale investigation will provide a detailed account of the events surrounding Mr. Altman’s firing. It is unclear whether the full report or its summary will be made public.
At the time of Mr. Altman’s dismissal, OpenAI’s six-person board included Drs. Suitskever. Helen Toner, an artificial intelligence researcher who works at a Georgetown University think tank. Adam D’Angelo, former Facebook executive. Greg Brockman, co-founder and president of the company. Tasha McCauley, assistant senior management scientist at the RAND Corporation. and Mr. Altman.
As a condition of Mr. Altman’s reinstatement, executives agreed to shuffle OpenAI’s board to include a more diverse and independent set of directors. OpenAI’s six-member board has been reduced to an interim board of three: Bret Taylor, a former Salesforce and Facebook executive, has joined as board chairman to help appoint a new set of directors. Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, also joined. Mr. D’Angelo remains on the board.
In October, Ms. Murati approached some board members and expressed concerns about Mr. Altman’s leadership, the people said.
He described what some believed to be Mr. Altman’s book, which involved manipulating executives to get what he wanted. First, Ms. Murati said, Mr. Altman would tell people what they wanted to hear to charm them and support his decisions. If they didn’t go along with his plans, or if they took too long to make a decision, then he would try to undermine the credibility of people who questioned him, the people said.
Ms. Murati told the board that she had previously sent a private note to Mr. Altman outlining some of her concerns about his behavior and shared some details of the note with the board, the people said.
Around the same time in October, Dr. Sutskever approached board members and expressed similar concerns about Mr. Altman, the people said.
Some board members were concerned that Ms. Murati and Dr. Schutskever would leave the company if Mr. Altman’s behavior was not addressed. They also worried that the company would see an exodus of talent if top lieutenants left.
There were other factors that contributed to the decision. Some members were concerned about the creation of the OpenAI Startup Fund, a venture fund started by Mr. Altman. Unlike a typical mutual fund, which is a legal extension of the company, Mr. Altman held the legal ownership of the OpenAI fund and raised money from outside limited partners. OpenAI said the structure was temporary and that Mr. Altman would not receive any financial benefit from it.
The OpenAI fund used this money to invest in other AI startups. Some board members were concerned that Mr Altman used the fund to sidestep accountability from OpenAI’s non-profit governance structure. They confronted Mr. Altman about legal ownership and operational control of the fund last year.
Axios has previously reported on Mr Altman’s control of the OpenAI fund.
Board members began discussing their next steps after being approached by Ms. Murati and Dr. Sutzkever. By mid-November, the board planned to name Ms. Murati as interim chief executive while it conducted a search for a new chief executive, the people said. The board ousted Mr. Altman on Nov. 17.
In the days that followed, Mr. Altman waged a public fight to regain his position, using a mix of public pressure and powerful allies in Silicon Valley to push for his reinstatement. Most of OpenAI’s 770 employees have threatened to quit if he is not reinstated as CEO. Mrs. Murati and Dr. Schutskever quickly — and publicly — said they supported Mr. Altman’s return to the company. Dr. Sutskever has not returned to his regular duties at the company, some of the people said.
After five days of public marching, Mr. Altman returned to work.
