In a surprising turn of events, Sam Altman, who was sacked from his position at OpenAI last week, is set to take up his role as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) back with a new group of board of directors.
The new initial board of directors include – former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, and co-founder and CEO of Quora Adam D’Angelo.
Taylor will serve as the chair of the new board. He also served as the chairman of the board of Twitter (now X), prior to Elon Musk’s acquisition. He is presently a member of the Shopify’s board as well.
Summers, a former president of Harvard University, served as the 71st US Secretary of the Treasury under former President Bill Clinton. He was also the director of the National Economic Council.
D’Angelo was one of OpenAI’s existing board members who served as the chief technology officer (CTO) of Facebook (now Meta).
The three other board members who moved to oust Altman — Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley, and Ilya Sutskever — are expected to leave their positions as part of the changes.
As for the next steps, Open AI’s new board is expected to grow.
According to multiple reports, there could be up to nine directors, with Microsoft expected to have a seat on the board.
Altman himself was not named to the board, but there is speculation that he will join at some point.
OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman on Wednesday shared a picture with his team on X after he and Sam Altman returned to the ChatGPT developing company.
“We are so back,” Brockman wrote.
He officially announced his return to the company in a post, saying, “Returning to OpenAI and getting back to coding tonight”.
Altman said he loves OpenAI and everything he has done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together.
“When I decided to join Microsoft on Sunday evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team,” he posted.
“With the new board and with Nadella’s support, I’m looking forward to returning to OpenAI, and building on our strong partnership with Microsoft,” he mentioned.
OpenAI said that it has reached an agreement in principle for Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo.
Nadella said they are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board.
“We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance. Sam, Greg, and I have talked and agreed they have a key role to play along with the OAI leadership team in ensuring OAI continues to thrive and build on its mission,” Nadella posted on X.
“We look forward to building on our strong partnership and delivering the value of this next generation of AI to our customers and partners,” he added.
Nadella had announced that Altman and OpenAI co-founder and former president Greg Brockman will join the company to run its advanced AI research team.
(With inputs from IANS)
