ChatGPT-maker OpenAI fires CEO Sam Altman

Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, has been appointed as the interim CEO, effective immediately, the company said, while it searches for a permanent CEO.

Saturday November 18, 2023 , 2 min Read

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has been fired, the company announced on Friday. Open AI said he was let go on grounds of not being consistently open in his communication with the board.

“Mr 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. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,” the company said in its blog post.

Altman took to X and said, “I loved my time at OpenAI. It was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. Most of all I loved working with such talented people. Will have more to say about what’s next later.”

While the company conducts a search for a permanent CEO, Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately. With five years on OpenAI's leadership team, she leads the company’s research, product, and safety. Given her expertise in AI governance and policy, the board said it sees her as a perfect fit as interim CEO.

“We are grateful for Sam’s many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward. As the leader of the company’s research, product, and safety functions, Mira is exceptionally qualified to step into the role of interim CEO. We have the utmost confidence in her ability to lead OpenAI during this transition period,” the board of directors said in a statement.

After learning today’s news, this is the message I sent to the OpenAI team: https://t.co/NMnG16yFmm pic.twitter.com/8x39P0ejOM
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 18, 2023

OpenAI also announced that Greg Brockman, President of OpenAI will be stepping down as chairman of the board, but will remain at the company. Later, Brockman took to X to inform that he had quit “based on today’s news”.

OpenAI was founded in December 2015 as a non-profit research laboratory with the core mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. However, in 2019, OpenAI announced it was shifting from being a non-profit to a for-profit. But it was after the launch of ChatGpt in November 2022 that Altman gained massive popularity in the world of GenAI.