A heart, a salute emoji at attention and another heart. That's how Sam Altman greeted the announcement on X of his return to OpenAI, late on Tuesday, November 22. "We're back," tweeted other employees of the artificial intelligence start-up, to signify that they were back for another episode of a Hollywood series. The white smoke marked the end of a chaotic and spectacular soap opera, which began on Friday with the surprise ousting of the company's founder, behind the famous chatbot ChatGPT.
"We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of [former Salesforce CEO] Bret Taylor [as chair], [former secretary of the Treasury] Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo [director general of question-and-answer site Quora, and the only member of the former board who voted to fire Altman]," OpenAI tweeted. The new board is not intended to be permanent and its main task is to appoint the nine future members, according to tech website The Verge.
The return of Altman is the latest twist in the crisis at OpenAI. It had been hoped for in vain all weekend by Altman and his co-founder, Greg Brockman, supported by Microsoft, OpenAI's main partner and outside shareholder. On Monday, the board of directors surprised everyone by naming a replacement for Altman, who meanwhile announced that he had been hired by Microsoft. This triggered a letter from 700 of OpenAI's 770 employees, threatening to follow him if the board did not resign.
"I love OpenAI, and everything I've done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together," Altman tweeted. "When I decided to join Microsoft on Sunday evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team. With the new board and with the support of Satya [Nadella, Microsoft CEO], I'm looking forward to returning to OpenAI and building on our strong partnership with Microsoft."
Microsoft's grip on OpenAI will be strengthened in the wake of the crisis. On Friday, the software giant was totally surprised by the announcement of the ousting of the boss of the start-up in which it has invested more than $11 billion (€10.1 billion) since 2019. In televised interviews on Monday evening, Nadella made no secret of his desire for "governance changes" at OpenAI. According to The Verge, the company could now be represented on the board of directors.
"We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. We believe this is an essential first step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance," Nadella tweeted, adding that he had personally discussed with Altman and Brockman the "key role" they were to play going forward.
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