Former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has now joined Microsoft along with former President Greg Brockman, announced the tech giant, on Monday (Nov 20). This comes days after Altman was fired from OpenAI.
Earlier, Altman and Brockman joined executives at the Open AI’s San Francisco headquarters on Sunday (Nov 19) after being invited by interim CEO Mira Murati, according to a report by The Information.
The report citing board director Ilya Sutskever’s statement to the company’s staff said that ex-Twitch boss Emmett Shear will become the new interim CEO.
Murati had plans to re-hire her ousted predecessor, reported Bloomberg citing people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Sam Altman at OpenAI HQ
The former chief of the leading artificial intelligence firm posted an image of himself at the company’s HQ holding a guest ID pass with the caption, “First and last time i ever wear one of these.”
The Information citing Sutskever’s statement said that Altman will not return to the company as CEO despite efforts from the company’s executives to bring him back.
OpenAI hires new interim CEO
Meanwhile, Shear confirmed his appointment as OpenAI’s new CEO on Monday (Nov 20). This comes after the tech news website reported that Shear, who co-founded Twitch had stepped down from the Amazon-owned live video streaming platform earlier this year, and will be the new interim CEO.
“Today I got a call inviting me to consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to become the interim CEO of @OpenAI. After consulting with my family and reflecting on it for just a few hours, I accepted,” said the ex-Twitch boss, in a post on X.
Altman joins Microsoft
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, took to X, on Monday (Nov 20) and announced the hiring of Altman and other members of his team.
Altman “will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team,” along with Brockman and their colleagues, said Nadella.
We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners. We look forward to getting to know Emmett…
— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) November 20, 2023
Notably, Microsoft recently rebranded its search engine Bing Chat an AI-powered chatbot to ‘Copilot’ after ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI was integrated.
Altman’s ouster
OpenAI, the company behind the popular generative AI chatbot ChatGPT released a statement about Altman’s ouster and said he was under a formal review and that he had hidden information from the company board and was fired after the board decided that they had lost confidence in him.
“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,” said OpenAI.
It added, “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”
The statement said the board was “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.”
Altman’s ouster has angered current and former employees amid concerns about how an upcoming $86 billion share sale could be affected by the sudden management upheaval, reported Reuters.
(With inputs from agencies)