Devanjana Mukherjee, Khabri Media
Open AI removed its CEO Sam Altman after a review found he was “not consistently candid in his communications” with board of directors.
Pic: Social Media (OpenAI’s Core Team)
ChatGPT maker OpenAI on Friday fired its CEO Sam Altman and removed its co-founder Greg Brockman from the board over a “quick” call on Google Meet. As per official sources, Mr Brockman on Saturday said that he and Sam were “shocked and saddened” by what the board did and that they were “still trying to figure out” exactly what happened. To subscribe please click tau.id/2iy6f and access our live channel.
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According to the statement, “Last night, Sam got a text from Ilya asking to talk at noon Friday. Sam joined a Google Meet and the whole board, except Greg, was there. Ilya (OpenAI’s cofounder) told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon. – At 12:19pm, Greg got a text from Ilya asking for a quick call. At 12:23pm, Ilya sent a Google Meet link. Greg was told that he was being removed from the board (but was vital to the company and would retain his role) and that Sam had been fired. “
Soon, OpenAI published a blog post to which Sam reacted on his social media’s official handle stating it as a ‘wierd experience’. “Today was a weird experience in many ways. but one unexpected one is that it has been sorta like reading your own eulogy while you’re still alive. the outpouring of love is awesome,” he said.
Earlier, OpenAI announced that Altman was dismissed as the company’s CEO, saying it “lost confidence in his ability to lead”. The company further said that Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati will serve as interim CEO until it finalised a permanent CEO after conducting a formal search.
Pic: Social Media (Sam Altman and Greg Brockman)
Joining Altman, OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman in a post on X said Sam and he were “shocked and saddened by what the board did today”. He further stated that, the outpouring of support has been really nice; thank you, but please don’t spend any time being concerned. We will be fine. Greater things coming soon.
“Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” according to OpenAI.
Meanwhile, responding to a post by Altman, Ashneer Grover said, “Dude – fight on. The Board has tried to go after my shares – got nothing – so they are now going after me and my family through criminal cases. It’s a long fight! With you !!”
The statement comes to light after former Managing Director of BharatPe Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain were stopped Thursday evening by authorities at the Delhi airport from travelling to New York on the basis of a lookout circular issued against them by Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW).
On Friday morning, the EOW sent summons to their Delhi residence, asking them to join its investigation in a case in which recruitment firms linked to Grover and his family members allegedly used backdated invoices to siphon funds from BharatPe.
Taking to his social media handle PhonePe founder stated that Grover said he will cooperate with the probe. He said he had not received any communication from the EOW since May last year, when the case was filed, until Friday.
The organization (OpenAI) was founded in December 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, and Wojciech Zaremba, among others. Elon Musk resigned from the board in 2018, but the organization has continued its work with a focus on developing artificial intelligence technology in a safe and beneficial manner.
