In a stunning turn of events, OpenAI announced on Friday that former CEO Sam Altman is no longer with the company. In his stead, OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati will serve as the interim CEO until the company finds a permanent successor.
“Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” the company explained in a blog post. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”
UPDATE: Sam Altman took to X to share a short statement of his own on Friday:
The timing of this announcement is nearly as surprising as the announcement itself. Sam Altman took the stage just days ago for the opening keynote of OpenAI’s DevDay developer conference. He revealed new features and updates for its GPT-4 large language model. There were no signs that his job was in danger at the time.
Inevitably, more will come out in the coming days and weeks.
The board of directors shared the following statement regarding their decision:
OpenAI was deliberately structured to advance our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity. The board remains fully committed to serving this mission. We are grateful for Sam’s many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward. As the leader of the company’s research, product, and safety functions, Mira is exceptionally qualified to step into the role of interim CEO. We have the utmost confidence in her ability to lead OpenAI during this transition period.
This is not the only change in the leadership structure of the company, either. OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman is stepping down as chairman of the board but will remain in his role at the company, where he will report to the new CEO.
