Sam Altman, the Silicon Valley CEO behind the artificial intelligence-powered chatbots ChatGPT and GPT-4, has been unexpectedly fired by his firm’s board of directors in a significant shake-up for the tech industry.
Microsoft-backed Open AI said on Friday that its board of directors settled on the “leadership transition” after losing confidence in Altman’s ability to lead the company.
The company said in a statement on its blog, “Mr Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”
The board of directors said they were appreciative of Altman’s contributions but had decided that “new leadership is necessary as we move forward”.
The $90bn company or its board did not elaborate on the cause for Altman’s exit.
Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati was appointed interim CEO until a more permanent replacement was found to lead the company.
Altman represented the company last time just this week in a panel discussion at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco.
Altman made a short statement about his departure from X, formerly known as Twitter, saying he “loved working with such talented people” and that leading the company had been “transformative to me personally”.
Altman’s shock departure prompted a flurry of reactions across the tech sector.
Former Google CEO Eric Shmidt on X represented Altman as a “hero” who had “changed our collective world forever”.
Open AI president Greg Brockman, who co-founded the start-up with Altman and Elon Musk, announced briefly after the news broke that he would also be departing the company.
Sam Altman became a household name after last year’s release of ChatGPT, which captivated and alarmed the public in equal measure with its ability to deliver lengthy and human-like – but not always accurate – answers to user queries.
