According to people familiar with the situation, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that Sam Altman and the board of OpenAI had started talks to reinstate the former CEO of the company that owns ChatGPT.
According to the story, Altman communicates with at least one board member, Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of Quora.
A few investors in the artificial intelligence startup are also involved in the talks, and Altman may rejoin the board as a director during a transition.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. After the unexpected dismissal of Altman by the company on Friday, Greg Brockman, another co-founder of the venture and OpenAI investor at Microsoft (MSFT.O), hired him before the weekend was out.
However, things seemed to be in flux when Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella informed the public on Monday that OpenAI’s governance needs to alter and that “regardless of where Sam is, he’s working with Microsoft.”
The company revolted once Altman was fired. All seven hundred of its workers issued a letter threatening to resign, requesting that the board step down and that Altman and Brockman be reinstated.
Nadella told CNBC that he was amenable to employees joining the Windows manufacturer or remaining at OpenAI.
According to a Bloomberg article on Tuesday, OpenAI interim CEO Emmett Shear has informed people close to the firm that he does not want to continue if the board cannot articulate the reason behind Altman’s dismissal.
Concerned that they would lose millions of dollars if the hottest firm in the rapidly expanding generative AI market collapses, some OpenAI investors are considering suing the board of the company, sources told Reuters on Monday.
As of Friday, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner, and OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever made up the four-person board, excluding D’Angelo of Quora.
