OpenAI Reinstates CEO Sam Altman to Its Board After Investigation

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gestures during a session of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 18, 2024. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

OpenAI reinstated Sam Altman to its board of directors after a comprehensive review, the company board announced.

“We have unanimously concluded that Sam and Greg are the right leaders for OpenAI,” Bret Taylor, chair of the OpenAI board, announced on March 8.

The move came after less than half a year ago, its previous board suddenly dismissed Mr. Altman, saying it lost confidence in him to lead the company. Mr. Altman’s removal was unexpected and shocked the tech industry. Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s co-founder and president, resigned in protest over Mr. Altman’s dismissal.

Just days after his dismissal, Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman joined Microsoft for a new artificial intelligence (AI) research team at the tech giant.

The board’s termination decision sparked outrage among many staff members at the AI giant, with at least four employees resigning in protest over his termination and more than 700 threatening to quit and join Mr. Altman at Microsoft unless the board resigned.

Under intense pressure, the board reinstated Mr. Altman as CEO, leading to the resignation of most board members and the formation of a new board. Mr. Brockman also returned to the company.

Following the incident, the company’s new board set up a special committee and hired WilmerHale, an international law firm, to review the incident that led to the termination of Mr. Altman as CEO and the removal of Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman from the previous board.

“WilmerHale reviewed more than 30,000 documents; conducted dozens of interviews, including of members of OpenAI’s prior Board, OpenAI executives, advisors to the prior Board, and other pertinent witnesses; and evaluated various corporate actions,” according to the OpenAI announcement.

“WilmerHale found there was a breakdown in trust between the prior board and Mr. Altman that precipitated the events of Nov. 17,” it concluded.

WilmerHale also found that the prior board did not expect the consequence of its termination of Mr. Altman could destabilize OpenAI, and the board’s decision was made quickly without giving Mr. Altman an opportunity to address the board’s concerns. However, the law firm noted that “the prior board acted within its broad discretion to terminate Mr. Altman,” but “his conduct did not mandate removal.”

OpenAI also revealed three new board members. They include Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Nicole Seligman, former president of Sony Entertainment; and Fidji Simo, CEO and chair of Instacart.

“The new members have experience in leading global organizations and navigating complex regulatory environments, including backgrounds in technology, nonprofit, and board governance,” OpenAI stated.

In addition, the board also announced plans to restructure its governance, including adopting new corporate governance guidelines, strengthening the conflict of interest policy, creating a whistleblower hotline for its employees, and establishing additional committees to advance the company mission.

Lawsuits

OpenAI received billions of dollars from Microsoft since the company switched to a for-profit model in 2018. Microsoft has invested around $13 billion in the company.

Last month, industrialist Elon Musk, former co-founder, sued OpenAI and its co-founders, accusing the company of violating its founding agreement by developing AI for profit instead of advancing the technology “for the good of humanity.”

In response to Mr. Musk’s lawsuit, OpenAI has signed a pledge that vows to develop AI technology in a manner that will “contribute to a better future for humanity.”

The company also faces a copyright infringement lawsuit from The New York Times, which accuses OpenAI of using the newspaper’s content as a paradigm to build its large-language models.

In September 2023, George R.R. Martin, creator of “A Game of Thrones,” joined the Authors Guild, a group representing about 14,000 U.S. authors, to file a lawsuit against OpenAI for copyright violation, accusing the company of “systematic theft on a mass scale.”

Its ChatGPT chatbot is also under criticism for allegedly censoring topics related to China and manipulating translation outcomes, such as refusing to create images of Tiananmen Square, where the Chinese regime brutally killed thousands of innocent students for their peaceful pro-democracy protest in 1989.

According to research from ChatGPT and Microsoft published last month, state-affiliated hackers from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have tried using OpenAI’s tool for hacking.

Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.