How the chaos at ChatGPT maker OpenAI has unfolded as ousted CEO Sam Altman returns – and why it matters
Sam Altman – the public face of ChatGPT maker OpenAI – has returned to the company just days after his shock ousting.
Not being “consistently candid in his communications” was the charge laid at his feet by the board when the stunning decision to remove him was announced on Friday.
But within days, the 38-year-old was tipped for a return, those who toppled him seemingly harbouring second thoughts after the company president walked out and staff threatened to follow.
And now, less than a week later, he is indeed back.
Given Mr Altman and OpenAI are at the forefront of the AI revolution, the sense of Succession-style chaos should concern us all.
Here’s everything we know – and why it matters.
Shock departure
Mr Altman’s sacking was announced in an unassuming OpenAI press release.
Coming just weeks after he’d represented the firm at the UK’s AI Safety Summit, and days after appearing at the company’s first conference for third-party developers, the timing was a shock.
The board was said to have “lost confidence” in him due to unspecified communications issues.
In this case, the board had meant just four people – including OpenAI’s chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who had reportedly become concerned that Altman was prioritising company growth over AI safety.
Members five and six – Mr Altman himself and then-president Greg Brockman – opposed it but were outvoted.
“I loved my time at OpenAI,” Mr Altman posted on X as the news broke, describing it as “transformative”.
“Will have more to say about what’s next later.”
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at summit
The immediate fallout
OpenAI made chief technology officer Mira Murati interim CEO.
But as hundreds of staff made their displeasure about Altman’s sacking known, she made attempts to secure his stunning return to stave off the revolt.
“OpenAI is nothing without its people,” many employees wrote together on X – including Ms Murati herself.
Mr Altman was reportedly keen on the idea of returning. His brother Jack, also a start-up CEO, of HR firm Lattice, warned his detractors they were “betting against the wrong guy”.
But by Sunday, Mr Altman and Mr Brockman had joined OpenAI investor Microsoft to lead an AI research team.
Bloomberg reported the tech giant’s CEO Satya Nadella was “furious” and blindsided about the ousting.
OpenAI responded by hiring Emmett Shear, the former boss of streaming site Twitch, as Mr Altman’s replacement.
But the sense of panic at OpenAI was obvious, as more than 500 employees signed a letter threatening to quit.
Nothing encapsulated the chaos more than Mr Sutskever signing, saying he “deeply regrets” the board’s decision.
Altman’s homecoming
Despite joining Microsoft, Mr Altman left the door open for a return to OpenAI.
The two companies were already closely aligned, with the Windows maker investing $10bn in it earlier this year and using its GPT tech to reinvent its Bing search engine and Office products.
According to tech news site The Verge, citing multiple sources, Mr Altman and Mr Brockman were willing to return to OpenAI if the board members who staged the coup walked away.
Mr Nadella told CNBC “it’s very, very clear something has to change around governance”.
“We’ll have a good dialogue with their board on that,” he said.
Mr Altman suggested he’d stay involved with OpenAI in some capacity, posting: “We are all going to work together some way or other, and I’m so excited.”
OpenAI announced his return “in principle” on Wednesday morning (UK time) – and Mr Altman seemed to have got his way.
The company said there would be a “new initial board” of Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo.
“We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this,” it added.
Mr Summers is a former US treasury secretary, while Mr Taylor – the new chair – co-created Google Maps.
Mr Brockman will also be returning to the company.
What happens now?
Mr Altman has suggested his return means he won’t be working at Microsoft after all.
Mr Nadella appeared fine with that, saying he was “encouraged” by the changes to OpenAI’s board.
As for the old board, Mr Sutskever may be hoping his quick change of tact keeps him on side.
And then there’s Mr Shear, who will go down in history as one of Silicon Valley’s shortest-lived CEOs.
The executive, a previously self-professed AI “doomer” who has warned of its existential threat to humanity, had claimed he was not told why Mr Altman was dismissed.
“I am deeply pleased by this result,” he said of Mr Altman’s return.
“I’m glad to have been a part of the solution.”
ChatGPT launched in November 2022
Why the future of OpenAI matters
The San Francisco-based company has been around since 2015 and even then had some big names on its books, including Elon Musk.
He and Mr Altman were the first people on the board to guide the firm’s quest to develop “safe and beneficial” artificial general intelligence, which refers to super-powerful AI capable of outperforming humans in a number of tasks
But it wasn’t until November 2022 that OpenAI was thrust into mainstream attention thanks to ChatGPT, attracting more than 100 million users in just a few months.
With AI tipped to have a similarly transformative impact on the world as the Industrial Revolution, Mr Altman has been rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s most powerful politicians as he looks to help shape potential regulation.
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Will AI mean ‘no job is needed’?
Mr Altman hasn’t been shy of warning about the risks of AI, but is undoubtedly committed to pushing the boundaries and, perhaps more significantly to the drama of recent days, maximising its commercial potential.
The OpenAI developer conference he appeared at before his sacking was all about empowering third parties to leverage the firm’s GPT tech in their products – even building their own digital assistants.
And in September, the Financial Times reported ex-Apple designer Jony Ive was in talks with OpenAI to build the “iPhone of AI”.
Such projects would go against OpenAI’s non-profit origins. The firm launched a profit-focused arm in 2019, but it didn’t go down well with some of its original investors – including Musk, who quit.
Swapping Mr Altman for Mr Shear, who previously said he’s “in favour of slowing down” AI development, looked like a sign OpenAI wanted to return to its roots.
One thing we should all hope slows down is the drama surrounding Mr Altman’s employment – a saga not even ChatGPT could have written, and one that sent one of the world’s most influential companies into meltdown.
Fears of a US-EU trade war have been reignited after Europe refused to back down in the face of fresh threats from Donald Trump.
The word tariff has dominated much of the US president’s second term, and he has repeatedly and freely threatened countries with them.
Money blog: Trump sends message to UK on energy bills
This included the so-called “liberation day” last month, where he unleashed tariffs on many of his trade partners.
On Friday, after a period of relative calm which has included striking a deal with the UK, he threatened to impose a 50% tariff on the EU after claiming trade talks with Brussels were “going nowhere”.
The US president has repeatedly taken issue with the EU, going as far as to claim it was created to rip the US off.
However, in the face of the latest hostile rhetoric from Mr Trump’s social media account, the European Commission – which oversees trade for the 27-country bloc – has refused to back down.
EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said: “EU-US trade is unmatched and must be guided by mutual respect, not threats.
“We stand ready to defend our interests.”
Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday
Fellow EU leaders and ministers have also held the line after Mr Trump’s comments.
Polish deputy economy minister Michal Baranowski said the tariffs appeared to be a negotiating ploy, with Dutch deputy prime minister Dick Schoof said tariffs “can go up and down”.
French trade minister Laurent Saint-Martin said the latest threats did nothing to help trade talks.
He stressed “de-escalation” was one of the EU’s main aims but warned: “We are ready to respond.”
Mr Sefcovic spoke with US trade representative Jamieson Greer and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick after Mr Trump’s comments.
Mr Trump has previously backed down on a tit-for-tat trade war with China, which saw tariffs soar above 100%.
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US and China end trade war
Sticking points
Talks between the US and EU have stumbled.
In the past week, Washington sent a list of demands to Brussels – including adopting US food safety standards and removing national digital services taxes, people familiar with the talks told Reuters news agency.
In response, the EU reportedly offered a mutually beneficial deal that could include the bloc potentially buying more liquefied natural gas and soybeans from the US, as well as cooperation on issues such as steel overcapacity, which both sides blame on China.
Stocks tumble as Trump grumbles
Major stock indices tumbled after Mr Trump’s comments, which came as he also threatened to slap US tech giant Apple with a 25% tariff.
The president is adamant that he wants the company’s iPhones to be built in America.
The vast majority of its phones are made in China, and the company has also shifted some production to India.
Shares of Apple ended 3% lower and the dollar sank 1% versus the Japanese yen and the euro rose 0.8% against the dollar.
In the dozens of framed images and newspaper clippings covering the walls of his office in downtown New York City, Al Sharpton is pictured alongside presidents and leading protests.
He has spent decades campaigning and is perhaps the most famous civil rights activist in the US today.
Many of those clippings on the wall relate to one moment in May 2020 – the murder of George Floyd.
George Floyd was killed while under arrest in Minneapolis in May 2020
Speaking to Sky News ahead of the five-year anniversary of that moment, Mr Sharpton remembered the combination of “humiliation and deep anger” he felt seeing the footage of Mr Floyd’s death that swept the world.
“The more I watched, the more angry I felt,” he said.
Mr Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer.
Mr Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk reported he had made a purchase using counterfeit money.
Chauvin knelt on Mr Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, while he was handcuffed and lying face down in the street.
Chauvin pressed his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, as the victim repeatedly said ‘I can’t breathe’. Pic: AP
‘A seismic moment’
For Mr Sharpton, who has marched with countless other families, this felt different because it was “graphic and unnecessary”.
“What kind of person would hear somebody begging for their life and ignore them?” he said.
“I had no idea this would become a seismic moment,” he continued.
“I think people would accuse civil rights leaders, activists like me of being opportunistic, but we don’t know if one call from the next one is going to be big, all we know is we have to answer to the call.”
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Has US changed five years after George Floyd’s death?
Trump ‘pouring salt on the wounds’
Mr Floyd’s death took place during Donald Trump’s first term in the White House.
During Trump’s second term, his administration has moved to repeal federal oversight plans for the Minneapolis Police Department – a move originally supported by Joe Biden’s administration.
Mr Sharpton believes Mr Trump and the Department of Justice have purposely timed this for the 5th Anniversary of Mr Floyd’s Death.
“It’s pouring salt on the wounds of those that were killed, and those that fought,” he said.
“I think Donald Trump and his administration is actively trying to reverse and revoke changes and progress made with policing based on the movement we created after George Floyd’s death, worldwide.”
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Mr Sharpton still supports George Floyd’s family and will be with them this weekend in Houston, Texas, where many of them will mark the anniversary.
He said the legacy of Mr Floyd’s death is still being written.
Evoking the civil rights movement of the 1960s he said: “The challenge is we must turn those moments into permanent movements, it took nine years from 1955 to 1964 for Dr [Martin Luther] King in that movement to get a Civil Rights Act after Rosa Parks sat in the front of a bus in Montgomery.
“We’re five years out of George Floyd, we’ve got to change the laws.
“We can do it in under nine years, but we can’t do it if we take our eye off the prize.”
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