This appeared to be destined to happen.
Previously: Summary of Altman Firing and Re-Hiring by Microsoft (As I Understand It)
RT:
OpenAI’s chief executive officer Sam Altman is being reinstated after being fired from the company last week, according to a statement released by the ChatGPT developer on Tuesday. Former president Greg Brockman, who quit OpenAI in protest at Altman’s firing, is said to be returning as well.
Altman, who co-founded OpenAI alongside Elon Musk in 2015, was unexpectedly sacked last Friday with board members stating that he was “not consistently candid in his communications” with them and that he was hampering their ability to supervise the company.
However, Altman’s ousting did not go down well with the company’s workforce, with nearly all of its employees signing an open letter threatening to quit unless he was reinstated and the board resigned.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, the San Francisco-based enterprise said it had “reached an agreement in principle” for Altman’s return, adding that the company’s board of directors would also be overhauled, leaving just one former member.
“We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this,” the company wrote.
Prior to this announcement, it was believed that Altman, along with Brockman, would be moving to rival tech giant Microsoft. The company’s CEO Satya Nadella had even posted on X on Sunday that Microsoft was “extremely excited” to announce the pair’s recruitment, stating that they would be leading Microsoft’s “new advanced AI research team.”
What a weird series of events…