Hundreds of OpenAI staff threaten to quit over Altman sacking

Nearly all OpenAI employees are threatening to quit unless ousted founder Sam Altman is reinstated and the board resigns.

As many as 700 of the company’s 770 staff have signed a letter of no confidence to the ChatGPT-maker’s board, demanding the return of the company’s former chief executive.

The internal rebellion emerged on Monday in response to OpenAI’s bungled sacking of Mr Altman, who has since been hired by Microsoft to lead its artificial intelligence (AI) efforts.

Mr Altman, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, was sacked unexpectedly in a boardroom coup three days ago. An attempt to bring him back, led by key investors and senior staff, failed late on Sunday.

Despite crunch talks on Sunday night that suggested Mr Altman was close to a return, the OpenAI board ultimately hired Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear as the venture’s new chief executive.

Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s biggest investor, had supported the effort to reinstate Mr Altman. Satya Nadella, the tech giant’s chief, announced the hiring of Mr Altman and OpenAI’s former president Greg Brockman on Monday morning shortly after Mr Shear was installed.

However, the attempt by OpenAI board’s to reassert its authority triggered an even bigger internal rebellion. Hours later, the majority of staff demanded the board’s resignation.

Their letter said: “We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgement and care for our mission and employees. We, the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.

“We will take this step imminently unless all current board members resign.”

Employees also posted “OpenAI is nothing without its people” en masse on Twitter.

Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist and board member at OpenAI, played a key role in the ousting of Mr Altman, but was one of the letter’s signatories in a stunning u-turn.

He said: “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions… I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”

In response to joining Microsoft, Mr Altman, 38, said: “The mission continues.”

Mr Altman has emerged as a figurehead for a new wave of Silicon Valley companies evangelising the power of AI.

Microsoft had pledged to invest up to $13bn (£10.4bn) into OpenAI under Mr Altman’s leadership.

Mr Nadella was reportedly blindsided by the AI chief’s removal and alerted to the decision just minutes before it became public. However, Mr Nadella signalled that Microsoft would continue working with OpenAI despite the changes.

Mr Altman was sacked by other directors at OpenAI, which is set up as a non-profit with a focus on AI safety, because he was “not consistently candid” with the board, according to a statement released on Friday.

The coup was reportedly down to tensions between the board and Mr Altman over his increasingly commercial plans for the non-profit. He has also reportedly been attempting to raise billions of dollars for other ventures, such as a new microchip company.

However, OpenAI employees complained in their letter that the board had provided no “specific facts” about Mr Altman’s sacking.

Mr Shear, who co-founded Twitch, the game-streaming business sold to Amazon for $1bn, said he planned to hire an independent investigator to “dig into” the process leading up to Mr Altman’s sacking.

He added: “The board did not remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety, their reasoning was completely different from that.”

OpenAI is the developer of ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot that surged in popularity late last year. OpenAI had been on the brink of raising new funds at a valuation of $90bn, but those efforts are now in doubt.