Sam Altman returns to OpenAI’s board after review finds firing was unwarranted

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Sam Altman will return to the board of OpenAI after a review into the events that lead to his dramatic ousting from the ChatGPT maker found no evidence that he should have been sacked.

Altman was fired as chief executive and removed from the board of the artificial intelligence company he co-founded in November. The remaining board members reversed course days later, reinstating him as chief executive and stepping down instead.

A subsequent review into the boardroom chaos concluded there had been a significant breakdown of trust between the previous board and Altman, but found no evidence that the chief executive had misled investors or pushed product releases at an unsafe pace, according to former Salesforce boss Bret Taylor, who was appointed OpenAI chair after the previous board was disbanded.

“This was simply a breakdown in trust between the board and Mr Altman,” said Taylor, adding that the prior board “acted in good faith and didn’t anticipate some of the instability afterwards”.

Altman on Friday said: “I’m pleased this whole thing is over. Over these last few months it’s been disheartening to see some people with an agenda trying to tease leaks in the press to try and hurt the company and hurt the mission. They have not worked. They have been a disservice to OpenAI and the mission.”

Altman’s return to the board leaves the chief executive with the same formal powers he held before the November coup. But his influence over the company has arguably grown since then.

The vast majority of employees and OpenAI’s biggest backers, including Microsoft, lobbied for Altman’s return to the helm after the previous board failed to produce clear evidence of major wrongdoing in November — making clear they regarded the 38-year-old as an intrinsic part of OpenAI’s success.

The company has become the hottest start-up in Silicon Valley since the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot in November 2022, which has driven a precipitous rise in the company’s private valuation to about $80bn and touched off a widespread race to develop and deploy generative AI technology across a range of applications.

November’s drama highlighted a tension in OpenAI’s unusual structure, in which a non-profit board mandated to benefit all humanity governs a for-profit business which has become a commercial behemoth.

It also drew attention to Altman’s complex network of business interests, which include multiple investment vehicles and independent projects, as well as OpenAI.

The company on Friday said it would adopt new corporate governance guidelines, introduce new board committees and a whistleblower hotline, and strengthen its policy on conflicts of interest.

In the wake of the boardroom coup, Taylor had commissioned law firm WilmerHale to conduct an independent investigation into Altman’s behaviour and the decision to remove him.

Following the conclusion of that review on Friday, Taylor’s special committee “expressed its full confidence” in the leadership of Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman.

OpenAI announced three more new board members on Friday: Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former head of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Nicole Seligman, former president of Sony Entertainment; and Fidji Simo, chief executive of Instacart. Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers was appointed to the board late last year. A member of the previous board, Quora chief executive Adam D’Angelo, also remains in place.

More board members will be appointed, according to Taylor.