On Tuesday, OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman announced his comeback as CEO, just days after being sacked by the board.
“We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo,” it said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Altman was fired by OpenAI’s board last week, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said shortly after that he was appointing Altman to lead a new artificial intelligence research unit.
However, in a fast-paced sequence of events, Altman stated Tuesday that he has Nadella’s approval for his return as CEO of OpenAI.
“With the new board and w satya’s support, i’m looking forward to returning to openai, and building on our strong partnership with (Microsoft),” he wrote on X.
Following Altman’s dismissal, hundreds of OpenAI employees vowed to resign.
The vast majority of the company’s 770-strong workers said in a letter disclosed to the media that they would follow Altman unless the board responsible for his departure resigned.
Among those who signed the petition was co-founder Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s principal scientist and a member of the four-person board that forced Altman out.
“I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions,” Sutskever wrote on X on Monday. “I never intended to harm OpenAI.”
Despite pressure from Microsoft and other big investors, OpenAI hired Emmett Shear, a former CEO of Amazon’s streaming site Twitch, as its new CEO.