Sam Altman, the face of AI, was fired from OpenAI in the Bombshell Move

The co-founder and president of OpenAI abruptly resigned late Friday, hours after CEO Sam Altman was fired just hours earlier.

“We have been through difficult and wonderful times together, and we have achieved so much despite all the reasons that made it impossible. But based on today’s news, I have resigned,” Greg Brockman Announce On X.

The statement came after Altman was fired from the company he helped make a leading force in the artificial intelligence industry.

“Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process conducted by the Board of Directors, which concluded that he was not always forthcoming in his communications with the Board, which hindered his ability to exercise his responsibilities,” the company said in a statement. Blog post. “The Board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue to lead OpenAI.”

The board did not provide any details about Altman’s alleged lack of candor and refused to answer any follow-up questions about the sudden change.

Altman did not immediately return a call from The Daily Beast, but in a message to “I loved working with such talented people. He’ll have more to say about what’s next later.” He ended his post with a “salute” emoji.

Brockman separately to publish On the X, he and Altman are “still trying to figure out exactly what happened.” He said Altman received a text message from OpenAI’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, on Thursday night asking to join a virtual meeting the next day, where he was later told it had been “pulled and the news would be out very soon.”

OpenAI’s Board of Directors has appointed Chief Technology Officer Mira Moratti to serve as interim CEO.

This news reportedly shocked employees at OpenAI, who first heard about the news when it was announced publicly, according to The Verge. the edge.

Microsoft, a major investor in the company, told the outlet that it will continue to work with OpenAI and remains “committed to Mira and their team as we deliver this next era of AI to our customers.” But so was the tech giant It said I was “shocked” by the news and found out just before it was announced.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sought to downplay the situation in a post on .

According to the technology outlet the informationSutskever tried to reassure employees during an all-hands meeting on Friday, telling them that the disruption would eventually “make us feel closer.”

Altman came to OpenAI after serving as president of prominent startup incubator Y-Combinator and after launching his startup Loopt. The AI ​​company rose to prominence with the debut of ChatGPT, a hugely popular AI-powered chatbot. The company’s newest product, ChatGPT Plus, was so popular that it had to be Pause subscriptions Advance this month.

In addition to his role as CEO of OpenAI, Altman, 38, has served as the public face of the AI ​​industry. For what New York The magazine called it a “world tour” this spring, during which Altman met with the heads of state of France, Spain, India, South Korea, Germany and the United Kingdom. He also testified before the US Congress about the potential risks and benefits of artificial intelligence technology and attended a dinner at the White House.

Just one day before he was fired, Altman Back On behalf of OpenAI at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit in San Francisco, where he further evangelized AI.

“I believe this will be the most transformative and useful technology yet invented,” he said, adding that new technology like ChatGPT is “like the computer Star Trek always promised.”

Although it started as a non-profit, launched with major donations from Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel and others in 2015, it pivoted to a for-profit model in 2019 to attract venture funding. The move frustrated donors like Musk, who… chirp Earlier this year, “I’m still confused as to how the nonprofit I donated nearly $100 million to somehow came to have a market capitalization of $30 billion for profit. If it’s legal, why Doesn’t everyone do it?

Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO who is building his own AI initiative, called Altman a “hero” in a tweet on Friday.

“He built a company from nothing to a $90 billion value, and changed our collective world forever,” he wrote. “I can’t wait to see what he does next. I, and billions of people, will benefit from his future work. It will simply be incredible.”