Sam Altman to return as OpenAI CEO with new board members

Bret Taylor, the former chair of Twitter’s board, will serve as OpenAI’s new board chair, OpenAI said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter late Tuesday. Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary and Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of Quora and one of the board members who voted to oust Altman will be board members. “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO,” the statement said. “We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this.”

A spokesperson for OpenAI declined to comment further.

Altman will not have a seat on the board and the board agreed to an independent investigation, which will examine all aspects of recent events, including Altman’s role, according to a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

“I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together,” Altman said on X.

Altman’s return puts a cap on nearly a week of chaos at the AI company. His firing shocked much of the tech industry, including OpenAI’s own investors and employees, who mounted a campaign to get him back. On Sunday night, Altman agreed to join Microsoft instead, but the next day, both he and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella signaled that they would be open to him going back to OpenAI instead. On Monday, nearly all of the company’s roughly 770 employees signed a letter saying they’d quit if he wasn’t reinstated.

“When I decided to join [Microsoft] on sun evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team. With the new board and [with] Satya’s support, I’m looking forward to returning to OpenAI, and building on our strong partnership with [Microsoft],” Altman said on the platform X.

The drama around Altman’s sudden ouster at OpenAI has exposed the deep rift inside the company over who should control its future. OpenAI began in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab, but in recent years under Altman’s leadership, it took on billions of dollars in investment from the likes of tech giant Microsoft and venture capitalists, and began developing consumer products. Outside critics and some employees worried the company had abandoned its mission and was behaving more like a Big Tech company. It originally was meant to provide a more transparent, democratic alternative to Big Tech.

Altman’s return will be greeted with relief by investors, customers and employees who feared the boardroom drama could lead to the company’s implosion. If that had happened, it would have left a vacuum at the center of the AI industry, opening the window for competitors like Google and AI start-up Anthropic AI to gain momentum.

Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s biggest investor and uses its technology in its own AI products, also stands to benefit from a stabilized OpenAI and the return of Altman.

“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on X. “We look forward to building on our strong partnership and delivering the value of this next generation of AI to our customers and partners.”