Sam Altman Expresses Surprise and Disappointment Over OpenAI’s Decision to Terminate Him

Sam Altman and Greg Brockman were shocked and saddened by what the board did and are still trying to figure out what exactly happened. The former CEO and the former President of OpenAI have published a post on X, sharing the details of what they do know and how they found out the former was being fired. Apparently, company co-founder Ilya Sutskever invited Altman for a meeting at noon on Friday, which was then attended by the whole board except for Brockman. It was at that meeting that Altman found out he was being fired and that OpenAI was going to announce it “very soon.” Shortly after that, Sutskever reportedly invited Brockman to a separate Google Meet conference, where he was told that Altman had gotten fired and that he was being removed from the board. However, the board members told him that he was “vital to the company and would retain his role.” Brockman chose to quit on his own. The two former OpenAI executives also said that the rest of the company’s management team outside of interim CEO Mira Murati only found out about the board’s decision after Altman was already removed from his post. “The outpouring of support has been really nice; thank you, but please don’t spend any time being concerned,” their joint statement reads. “We will be fine. Greater things coming soon.” While OpenAI’s c-suite shakeup might have come as a surprise for onlookers, employees were reportedly very much aware that turmoil was already brewing within the organization. According to The Information, Altman’s ouster followed internal arguments on whether OpenAI was developing artificial intelligence technology in a safe manner. During the all-hands meeting after Altman’s firing, employees asked Sutskever if the CEO’s removal was a “coup” or a “hostile takeover.” That seems to imply that some personnel were wondering whether the organization’s leadership removed Altman because he was commercializing OpenAI’s technology too quickly at the expense of potential safety concerns. Bloomberg says Altman and Sutskever were the two people within the organization who butted heads the most when it came to the speed of development and the company’s commercialization. Sutskever is one of the two employees leading a team within OpenAI that’s dedicated to preventing its technologies from going rogue. Renowned journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher posted similar information on X. She said employees felt that “the profit direction of the company under Altman and the speed of development” were at odds with the “nonprofit side dedicated to more safety and caution.” Swisher also expects more major departures of “top folks” at OpenAI. These concerns over the safety of AI development within the organization didn’t pop up overnight, however. OpenAI has been grappling with the issue from the beginning, and it’s the reason why a group of employees left in 2020 to form their own startup that became known as Anthropic. Still, investors were blindsided by Altman’s firing, Forbes reports. Even Microsoft, which pledged to invest $10 billion into the organization over the next few years, reportedly learned about his removal a minute before the announcement went out.