OpenAI boss Sam Altman to return days after being sacked

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Wow, quite the drama. It’s clear that OpenAI would not survive if Altman left given the amount of staff who threatened to leave.

Meanwhile, Microsoft and Salesforce are angling to hire OpenAI employees who are revolting against the Altman firing. By the end of Monday, 747 out of 770 OpenAI employees reportedly signed a letter threatening to quit and join Altman at Microsoft if the firing isn’t reversed.

Also clear that the reasoning for the firing has not been and will likely not be revealed.

OpenAI is currently being led by interim CEO Emmett Shear. According to Bloomberg, “Shear has been left in the dark” regarding certain key questions about Altman’s removal. Shear “has told people close to OpenAI that he doesn’t plan to stick around if the board can’t clearly communicate to him in writing its reasoning for Altman’s sudden firing,” Bloomberg wrote.

Reports: Sam Altman in talks for OpenAI return; board members could be ousted

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Time magazine’s CEO of the year 2023: Sam Altman

It was a crazy year for Sam Altman.

It was a strange Thanksgiving for Sam Altman. Normally, the CEO of OpenAI flies home to St. Louis to visit family. But this time the holiday came after an existential struggle for control of a company that some believe holds the fate of humanity in its hands. Altman was weary. He went to his Napa Valley ranch for a hike, then returned to San Francisco to spend a few hours with one of the board members who had just fired and reinstated him in the span of five frantic days. He put his computer away for a few hours to cook vegetarian pasta, play loud music, and drink wine with his fiancé Oliver Mulherin. “This was a 10-out-of-10 crazy thing to live through,” Altman tells TIME on Nov. 30. “So I’m still just reeling from that.”

Since this was published, Sam Altman married Oliver Mulherin.

It was a crazy time for OpenAI as well.

Until the rocket ship nearly imploded. On Nov. 17, OpenAI’s nonprofit board of directors fired Altman, without warning or even much in the way of explanation. The surreal maneuvering that followed made the corporate dramas of Succession seem staid. Employees revolted. So did OpenAI’s powerful investors; one even baselessly speculated that one of the directors who defenestrated Altman was a Chinese spy. The company’s visionary chief scientist voted to oust his fellow co-founder, only to backtrack. Two interim CEOs came and went. The players postured via selfie, open letter, and heart emojis on social media. Meanwhile, the company’s employees and its board of directors faced off in “a gigantic game of chicken,” says a person familiar with the discussions. At one point, OpenAI’s whole staff threatened to quit if the board didn’t resign and reinstall Altman within a few hours, three people involved in the standoff tell TIME. Then Altman looked set to decamp to Microsoft—with potentially hundreds of colleagues in tow. It seemed as if the company that catalyzed the AI boom might collapse overnight.

In the end, Altman won back his job and the board was overhauled. “We really do feel just stronger and more unified and more focused than ever,” Altman says in the last of three interviews with TIME, after his second official day back as CEO. “But I wish there had been some other way to get there.” This was no ordinary boardroom battle, and OpenAI is no ordinary startup. The episode leaves lingering questions about both the company and its chief executive.

Sam Altman Is TIME's 2023 CEO of the Year