OpenAI Staff Threatens Exodus, Jeopardizing Company’s Future
The future of OpenAI is in jeopardy after more than 700 of its 770 employees signed a letter on Monday saying they may leave the company for Microsoft if the ousted chief executive, Sam Altman, is not reinstalled at the high-profile artificial intelligence start-up.
One of the board members who pushed out Mr. Altman on Friday reversed course on Monday and signed the letter, which was on an internal message board, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The board member, Ilya Sutskever, also posted on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions.”
The ouster of Mr. Altman by the four-member board — which said he had not been candid with it, but did not say how — set off a frantic weekend of corporate jockeying in which Mr. Altman wound up joining Microsoft to start a new A.I. project. Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in OpenAI, essentially has a 49 percent stake in the company.
