The OpenAI board of directors was concerned about Sam Altman’s personal financial interests. An internal investigation uncovered possible misinformation practices and manipulations, leading to a mass protest by employees demanding Altman’s reinstatement.
This is reported by Finway
According to an excerpt from the book «The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future» published by the WSJ, it was revealed that the attempt to dismiss Altman as CEO of OpenAI in 2023 sparked serious conflicts within the board and raised suspicions about opaque governance. The main source of tension was related to the management of the OpenAI Startup Fund, which turned out to be personally owned by Altman, despite his assurances that it was controlled by the company.
At the time, the company’s Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati and co-founder Ilya Sutskever were gathering evidence that Altman had provided misleading information to management and employees. In particular, he claimed that GPT-4 Turbo did not require additional security approval, a statement that OpenAI’s lawyers disputed.
After receiving this information, the independent members of the board decided to immediately dismiss Altman and his ally, OpenAI President Greg Brockman. The board attempted to minimize risks for the company; however, their actions had the opposite effect: within the first day, employees began a mass protest demanding Altman’s return.
Among those who signed a letter in support of Altman were Murati and Sutskever, who had previously initiated the investigation. This put the board in a difficult position: without the support of employees and key partners like Microsoft, their decision proved unviable.
After a few days, under pressure from the public and employees, the board agreed to reinstate Altman as CEO. However, the fallout from the conflict led to the departure of several participants, including Sutskever and Murati, who subsequently founded their own projects.
It is worth noting that earlier, Sam Altman accused Elon Musk of attempting to hinder the development of OpenAI.