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Sam Altman, Chief Executive Officer of OpenAI, and Mira Murati, Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, speak during The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Tech Live Conference in Laguna Beach, California on October 17, 2023. 

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

Sam Altman’s sudden ouster from OpenAI on Friday shocked Silicon Valley. Not only was Altman, 38, CEO of the hottest startup on the planet, but he had emerged as the face of generative AI after his company’s ChatGPT chatbot went viral late last year.

From the outside, there were some signs of technological challenges at OpenAI, but no indications that tensions were emerging in the boardroom and the C-suite. Altman was still out and about, proselytizing the value of advanced artificial intelligence while also warning of its potential harms and advocating for regulation.

Just last month, reports surfaced that OpenAI was in talks with investors to sell employee shares at an astonishing $86 billion valuation. That’s after tech valuations corrected dramatically over the past 18 months from the decade-long bull market that was fueled by cheap money and a whole lot of FOMO (fear of missing out).

OpenAI was the industry darling in a time of difficulty. Microsoft was pouring in billions of dollars. The company topped CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list, which was published in May. Shortly before the list came out, Altman told CNBC, “I do think we are deep into a new technological wave and this is, I think, the biggest one in a while.”

That all made Altman’s exit hard to fathom and had some in the tech community comparing the move to Apple’s firing of Steve Jobs in 1985. In a statement on its website, OpenAI said, “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.” The company named Mira Murati, who was the chief technology officer, as interim CEO.

If you followed Altman for the past two weeks, you would’ve seen an industry leader in the center of the action. Here’s an abbreviated timeline of the days leading up to Altman’s departure:

Nov. 6:

Altman took the stage at OpenAI’s DevDay event in San Francisco, where he announced GPT-4 Turbo, the company’s most powerful AI model. Users were also given access to all of OpenAI’s tools, such as its image-generator DALL-E and PDF upload, within ChatGPT.

At the event, Altman said prices for OpenAI’s software would be cut and individual users could customize ChatGPT. He also unveiled an OpenAI app store, an additional way that the company and its investors could monetize its products.

In a surprise appearance, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella joined Altman on stage to discuss the future of OpenAI and their partnership. Microsoft committed an additional $10 billion earlier this year, the largest AI investment of 2023, according to PitchBook.

“I think we have the best partnership in tech,” Altman told Nadella onstage. “I’m excited for us to build AGI together,” he said, referring to artificial general intelligence.

Nov. 8:

ChatGPT temporarily crashed in the morning. The chatbot told users that “ChatGPT is at capacity right now” and the update page called it a “major outage.” After a little over an hour, the issue was fixed before experiencing difficulties again later in the day.

OpenAI said in the evening that its issues were related to a denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

“We are dealing with periodic outages due to an abnormal traffic pattern reflective of a DDoS attack,” the company said.

Issues persisted into the next day before being fixed.

Nov. 14:

Altman posted on X, formerly Twitter, that there would be a pause in signing up for ChatGPT Plus. He said there had been a surge in requests after the DevDay announcements and that usage “has exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience.”

Nov. 16:

Altman appeared at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, speaking on AI.

The OpenAI shake up will not have a major impact on Microsoft, says Jefferies Brent Thill

At 3:28 p.m. ET on Friday, OpenAI published the blog post announcing Altman’s dismissal. At the same time, the company said Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, was being stripped of his role as chairman of the board but would stay on as an executive.

Here’s what happened next:

4:46 p.m. ET:

Altman made his first public statement about his departure, writing on X that his experience at the company was “transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit.”

7:09 p.m. ET:

Brockman announced on X that he’d quit the company “based on today’s news,” and said he was “super proud of what we’ve all built together since starting in my apartment 8 years ago.”

11:42 p.m. ET:

In an X post, Brockman provided a detailed account of Altman’s removal.

He said that on Thursday night, Altman received a text from OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever asking if they could talk the next day at noon. On Friday afternoon, Brockman wrote, Altman joined a Google Meet with OpenAI board members Sutskever, Tasha McCauley, Adam D’Angelo and Helen Toner. Brockman, who was chairman of the board at this time, wasn’t there.

In the meeting, Sutskever told Altman he was out as CEO. Shortly after that, Sutskever informed Brockman he was being removed as chairman but could remain president. OpenAI’s blog post was released at “around the same time,” Brockman wrote.

He said that it appeared Murati only knew of the move the night before. Altman reposted Brockman’s chronicling of the events.

Nov. 18:

Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap sent a memo to OpenAI employees addressing the firing. Lightcap said everyone was caught by surprise at the board’s decision and said Murati “has our full support as CEO.”

“We can say definitively that the board’s decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” Lightcap wrote.

— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report

WATCH: OpenAI says Sam Altman exiting as CEO

OpenAI says Sam Altman exits as CEO after board loses confidence

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Okta pops more than 20% on strong earnings and guidance beat

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Okta pops more than 20% on strong earnings and guidance beat

Todd McKinnon, CEO of Okta Inc., smiles during a Bloomberg Technology television interview in San Francisco on April 4, 2022.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Okta shares soared 22% on Tuesday after the cloud-based identity management company delivered strong fourth-quarter earnings and beat estimates on guidance.

The move put the stock on pace for its best day in more than a year.

Okta posted adjusted earnings late Monday of 78 cents per share, while revenue increased 13% from a year earlier to $682 million. That beat the average analyst estimates of 73 cents per share in earnings and $669.6 million in revenue, according to LSEG.

First-quarter revenue should come in between $678 million and $680 million, which also topped estimates.

On the company’s earnings call, CEO Todd McKinnon called it a “blowout quarter” as bookings topped $1 billion in a single period for the first time.

“We’re excited about the momentum we’ve built going into FY 2026 and are taking the right steps to advance our position as the leader in the identity market,” McKinnon said. “More and more customers are looking to consolidate their disparate and ineffective identity systems, and Okta is there to meet them with the most comprehensive identity security platform in the market today,” McKinnon added.

Okta allows companies to manage employee access or devices by providing tools such as single sign-on and multifactor authentication. Shares have rallied about 35% this year, including Tuesday’s pop, after slumping 13% in 2024. In late 2023, Okta suffered a high-profile data breach that gave access to client files through a support system.

Some Wall Street firms turned more positive on the stock after the latest results, with both D.A. Davidson and Mizuho upgrading their ratings. D.A. Davidson called the likelihood of double-digit growth “durable” as the company shows signs of stabilization.

Mizuho’s Gregg Moskowitz said the firm “underestimated” the upside to committed remaining performance obligations, or subscription backlog that the company expects to recognize as revenue over the next year.

“More broadly, OKTA continues to be a clear leader in the critically important identity management market,” Moskowitz wrote. “And we now have a higher confidence level that OKTA will increasingly benefit from its group of newer products that have already begun to drive a meaningful contribution.”

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Okta CEO Todd McKinnon goes one-on-one with Jim Cramer

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‘Music to our ears’: Qualcomm CEO welcomes TSMC’s $100 billion investment to boost U.S. chipmaking

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'Music to our ears': Qualcomm CEO welcomes TSMC's 0 billion investment to boost U.S. chipmaking

We're at the beginning of a 'significant upgrade' for AI smartphones, Qualcomm CEO says

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.‘s $100 billion commitment to expand manufacturing in the U.S. is “great news,” Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon told CNBC on Tuesday, adding it helps with diversification of chipmaking locations.

Amon also addressed U.S President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, suggesting longer term technology trends would outweigh any short term uncertainty.

Trump announced on Monday that TSMC would invest $100 billion in the U.S. which would go toward building more chip fabrication plants in Arizona. TSMC is the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer and supplies chips to the likes of Qualcomm, Apple and Nvidia.

The U.S., under leadership of both Trump and former President Joe Biden, has sought to bring more cutting-edge chip manufacturing to American soil on the grounds that it is a matter of national and economic security to have these advanced technologies made closer to home.

Many in the technology industry have backed these plans, including Qualcomm.

“Look, this is great news,” Amon said. “It shows that semiconductors are important. It’s going to be important for … the economy. Economic security means access to semiconductors. More manufacturing is music to our ears.”

Amon said that some of Qualcomm’s chips are already manufactured in TSMC’s existing plants in Arizona and in the future, the company will get more semiconductors made in the U.S.

“TSMC is a great supplier of manufacturing for Qualcomm. They have a facility in Arizona. We already have chips built in Arizona. The more capacity that they put we’re going to use it, same way we’ve been using in Taiwan, we’re going to use it in other locations,” Amon said.

Global companies are also digesting the imposition of tariffs by the U.S. on Mexico and Canada as well as additional duties on China.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon speaks at the Computex forum in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3, 2024.

Ann Wang | Reuters

Amon said it’s currently difficult to predict the impact on Qualcomm from the tariffs.

“It’s hard to tell because you don’t know exactly how this is going to go. The interesting thing is we’re big
exporters of chips. We’re not an importer of chips … Chips are going to devices. They’re made all over the world, and it’s hard to really know what is happening,” Amon said.

“We’re just is going to navigate based on whatever the outcome is.”

The Qualcomm CEO said there are a number of key technology trends that are likely to support the U.S. giant’s business in the long term, over the short term tariff uncertainty.

We are right at the “beginning of a significant upgrade for AI smartphones. We’re seeing PCs changing to AI PCs. Cars are becoming computers. That’s what’s driving our business, not necessarily what we’re going to see in the short term,” Amon said.

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Samsung to launch its Apple Vision Pro rival headset this year

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Samsung to launch its Apple Vision Pro rival headset this year

Samsung’s extended reality ‘Project Moohan’ headset on display at the Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelona.

Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

Samsung will launch its extended reality headset this year, a spokesperson for the company told CNBC on Tuesday.

The device, dubbed Project Moohan, is Samsung’s answer to Apple‘s $3,500 Vision Pro, which was launched last year.

Samsung teased the headset last year and put it on display at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Samsung refers to the product as “extended reality” or XR device which aims to merge the digital and physical world. However, there are currently few details about the device. Four cameras are visible in the front lens of the physical headset and there appears to be touch controls on the side.

Samsung worked alongside both Qualcomm and Google to develop a new kind of operating system for these kind of devices, known as the Android XR platform.

In December, Samsung said Google Gemini would be installed in the headset allowing wearers to experience a “conversation user interface.”

This would presumably enable users to interact with Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, to help navigate through apps and tasks. The cameras also suggest there will be some sort of gesture control similar to Apple’s Vision Pro.

“To me, the breakthrough technology is a combination of advanced vision capability with intelligence that understands user intention. I think without the intelligence part, it’s a defective product,” Patrick Chomet, executive vice president at Samsung’s mobile division, told CNBC in an interview on Tuesday.

Chomet hinted at a world envisioned by many consumer electronics firms, where smarter AI digital assistants are able to more intuitively understand user requirements on a device.

Samsung was one of the early players in virtual reality headsets, a market that never really took off the way many companies had predicted. But with technology advancing in areas from displays to chips, mixed or extended reality has been touted by big players as a new frontier in computing.

Samsung teased a future product roadmap during a January presentation when it launched its flagship S25 series of smartphones. One slide of the presentation showed outlines of future devices including a trifold smartphone, similar to Huawei’s Mate XT, as well as the Project Moohan headset.

The final product was a pair of glasses, which could hint at a different type of future XR headset. Smart glasses offer similar experiences to a headset but without wearing a bulky device.

Companies including Meta, Snap and XReal have been developing so-called augmented reality glasses. AR is when digital images are overlaid on the real world in front of you.

CNBC reported last year that Samsung, Qualcomm and Google were collaborating on a mixed-reality set of glasses. Samsung appeared to confirm such a collaboration at the S25 event in January.

Chomet did not give a timeline for the launch of a glasses product. However, he said that it is likely people will use multiple devices.

“Probably for quite some time still the smartphone will be the most used device,” Chomet said. “I see a world where people have various things including in their home, in their car. And the device will help you accomplish what you need to accomplish.”

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