A behind-the-scenes account provides new details about the abrupt firing and reinstatement of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in November 2023.
How it works: Based on insider accounts, an excerpt from a forthcoming book about OpenAI by Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey describes conflicts, accusations, and shifting alliances that led to Altman’s brief ouster and rapid return.
Firing and reinstatement: OpenAI’s board of directors came to distrust Altman but failed to persuade executives and employees that he should be replaced.
- In winter 2022, Altman told the board that the company’s joint safety committee with Microsoft had approved three “somewhat controversial” enhancements to GPT-4. Board member Helen Toner later learned that only one had been approved.
- Altman also failed to tell the board that Microsoft had tested GPT-4 in India without the committee’s approval.
- Board members were surprised to learn that Altman personally owned the $175 million OpenAI Startup Fund, so OpenAI investors wouldn’t see any profits. Altman claimed he didn’t benefit from the fund.
- CTO Mira Murati expressed doubts about Altman’s leadership to other board members. Murati, Toner, and co-founder Ilya Sutskever began to document his actions.
- On November 16, the board voted to fire Altman and appoint Murati interim CEO. The board members were reluctant to reveal why they’d fired Altman. At one meeting, Murati and other executives gave them 30 minutes to either explain why they fired Altman, resign, or watch the executive team quit. Nearly all OpenAI employees (including Murati and Sutskever) signed a letter threatening to quit if Altman wasn't reinstated, and the board reversed its decision.
Aftermath: Since Altman’s return, Murati and all but one director who voted to remove him have left OpenAI. The issues that precipitated his departure have given way to commercial concerns as the company considers a shift from its current hybrid nonprofit/for-profit structure to fully for-profit.
- GPT-5 will arrive “in the next few months,” according to Altman.
- Meanwhile, OpenAI launched GPT-4.1 (making full, mini, and nano versions available via API) and confirmed it soon would release o3, a new reasoning model.
- OpenAI said it will release its first open model, a new language model with open weights, in coming months.
- The company recently raised $40 billion, the largest-ever funding round for an AI company, increasing its valuation to $300 billion.
Why it matters: The AI frontier spawns not only technical innovations but also intense interpersonal relationships and corporate politics. Such dynamics have consequences for users and the world at large: Having survived serious challenges to his leadership, Altman has emerged in a strong position to build a path of faster growth as a for-profit company upon OpenAI’s philanthropic foundation.
We’re thinking: Given OpenAI’s formidable achievements, Altman’s renewed leadership marks an inflection point in the AI landscape. Without Sam Altman at the helm, OpenAI would be a very different company, with different priorities and a different future.