Inside the bombshell firing of tech whiz kid Sam Altman that set the AI world alight: How OpenAI sacked their star player in shock move that left staff and investors reeling – including Microsoft – who swooped in to hire him with Machiavellian precision

ChatGPT maker OpenAI was seen as an unstoppable force in artificial intelligence, growing from a nonprofit to an $80 billion company in just a few years — all with co-founder and CEO Sam Altman at the helm.

But a “boardroom coup” on Friday turned his top team against him, resulting in a shock resignation that caused three days of chaos at what was considered a confident company at the top of its game.

The news “blindsided” staff and sparked outrage among investors including Microsoft, which owns about 49 percent of the shares and whose CEO Satya Nadella was said to be furious when he learned about the decision at the last minute.

The sensational firing of Altman, widely revered as the driving force behind the San Francisco firm, created a groundswell of support from his colleagues and investors, prompting executives to try to reverse the decision.

Altman is said to be open to a return when a new system of governance and governance would replace those who deposed him, but he was instead unceremoniously dismissed, causing the AI ​​world to collapse.

Just hours later, Microsoft made its entrance – which would once again send shockwaves through the industry – with Nadella tapping Altman and his allies to lead an innovative new AI team.

The dramatic twists didn’t stop there, and in an open letter to the company’s mutinous board of directors, 505 of OAI’s 700 employees expressed a lack of confidence in OAI’s leadership.

The signatories surprisingly included Ilya Sutskever, herself a board member who supported the decision to fire Altman before expressing “regret” over the decision to, as one analyst cheekily put it, “Ctrl, Altman, Delete.”

Altman, a Stanford dropout, is widely credited with driving OpenAI’s success since its founding by 10 investors and entrepreneurs in 2015.

The Chicago-born tech entrepreneur went from the lucrative 2012 sale of Loopt, an app he co-founded with two of his classmates, to OpenAI alongside Tesla chief Elon Musk – who left the company in 2018 after clashes with its board management.

He transformed it from a nonprofit to a capped profit company and helped attract new investors.

A major breakthrough came in 2019, when Microsoft injected $1 billion into OpenAI, largely in the form of computing credits, in exchange for a role in the future commercialization of its technologies.

The company went from strength to strength and began to focus on the development of natural language processing, releasing popular generative AI tools to the public.

It launched its famous ChatGPT almost exactly a year ago, on November 30, 2022, when Altman tweeted that it had reached more than 1 million users in just five days.

Then in January, Microsoft pumped even more money into the company and announced it would make a multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI.

Although specific details have not been shared, it is believed that Microsoft’s investment was worth $10 billion.

But after an incredible year of success, in which the ChatGPT system became perhaps the most viral application in technology history, few expected the company to tear up the book.

The 38-year-old CEO reportedly received a text message from a fellow board member asking him to join an impromptu video call. During that call Friday, Altman was told he had been fired.

“We are grateful for Sam’s many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI,” a statement from OpenAI’s board said Friday. “At the same time, we believe new leadership is needed as we move forward.”

The resignation was said to be the result of a culture clash at the top of OpenAI over the pace of development, and the public explanation was that he was “not consistently forthcoming” with the board.

The coup was led by board member Ilya Sutskever, who was said to be concerned about the dangers of AI.

Just a day later, Altman was in discussions with the board about returning.

Crisis talks were held at OAI’s headquarters on Sunday, believed to be mediated by Microsoft’s CEO Nadella, who was surprised by his dismissal and keen to bring him back.

But the discussions ended when Altman left the building for the final time and OAI announced that former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear was appointed interim boss at the tech giant.

An angry Nadella, desperate to maintain the AI ​​lead, seized the opportunity and in a crushing move brought Sam Altman from Microsoft just three hours later, along with AOI co-founder Greg Brockman, turning AOI’s largest investor into a competitor.

Investor anger was accompanied by a wave of employee anger and support for ex-boss Altman, who helped push their company to the top of the AI ​​world.

As the drama continued to unfold three days after his shock, the man who took the lead, Ilya sutskever, now found himself in a professional dead end and apologized. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, he said: “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. It was never my intention to harm OpenAI. I love everything we have built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”

But the regret came too late.

In an open letter to the company’s board, which voted Friday to oust Altman, the group said it is clear “you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI.”

Employees who signed the letter said that if the board does not resign, they “may choose to resign en masse” and join “Microsoft’s newly announced subsidiary run by Sam Altman.”

Sutskever, a board member widely credited with leading the decision to fire Altman, tweeted his “regret” on Monday and added his name to the letter.

The company is now led by Emmett Shear, the former boss of Twitch, who has promised an investigation into the board’s decision to fire Altman.

Instead of returning to OAI, Altman and his co-founder Greg Brockman, who resigned in protest over his firing, are expected to continue making AI products at Microsoft.

Brockman announced the hiring of several key OpenAI executives for these projects, which Nadella said will be “independent” and “innovative.”

Altman has hinted that he will pick up where they left off at OAI, suggesting unfinished business at OAI when he tweeted “the mission continues.”

Meanwhile, Brockman promised, “We’re going to build something new and it’s going to be incredible,” combating words that will cause excitement among technology enthusiasts and fear among Microsoft competitors.

Now the tech world is holding its breath as it waits to see what the next installment of this unprecedented saga has in store.