The News
After an investigation into his conduct found no wrongdoing, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman returned to the company’s board of directors Friday, roughly three months after he was fired, causing turmoil at the artificial intelligence company responsible for ChatGPT.
OpenAI also announced it would add three new board members: Former Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former Sony global general counsel Nicole Seligman, and Instacart CEO Fidji Simo.
That brings the total number of OpenAI’s board to eight people. Only one of the eight board members - Quora founder and CEO Adam D’Angelo - voted to oust Altman. The news of Altman’s reinstatement was first reported by The Information.
OpenAI said its investigation, handled by the law firm WilmerHale, found that that “a breakdown in trust between the prior Board and Mr Altman that precipitated the events of November 17,” the day Altman was ousted. The board believed firing Altman would “mitigate internal management challenges,” and didn’t anticipate Altman’s firing would destabilize the company.
The company did not release many details on the investigation, which relied on dozens of interviews and 30,000 documents. Bret Taylor, a veteran Silicon Valley executive, said Altman’s firing did not relate to product safety. That seemed intended to dispel concerns that Altman may have been fired to stop a dangerous artificial intelligence algorithm from getting loose — a theory that had bounced around social media and in some news articles.
In a press conference Friday, Altman said that he had learned a lesson from how he handled a lack of trust in one of the company’s former board members. He did not name the board member, but Altman did have a falling out with Helen Toner, an AI ethics expert who served on the board and voted to fire him.
OpenAI will retain its corporate structure, by which a non-profit organization oversees a for-profit entity, a $100 billion-company leading the AI industry in capabilities.
