OpenAI announced on Friday the formation of a new board of directors and the conclusion of an internal investigation by US law firm WilmerHale into the events that led to the ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Sam Altman will also rejoin the OpenAI board of directors.
The new board members are:
- Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a member of the board of directors of Pfizer and a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
- Nicole Seligman, former executive vice president and global general counsel of Sony, president of Sony Entertainment, and a board member of Paramount Worldwide, Meira GTx and Intuitive Machines, Inc.
- Fidji Simo, CEO and Chairman of Instacart, is also a member of Shopify’s Board of Directors.
According to a press release, the three new members will “work closely with current board members Adam D’Angelo, Larry Summers and Bret Taylor, as well as Greg, Sam and OpenAI’s senior management.”
OpenAI will continue to expand its board of directors, according to a Zoom call with reporters.
OpenAI did not release a report on the investigation but provided a summary of its findings.
“The review concluded that there was a serious breakdown of trust between the former board and Sam and Greg,” Taylor said. He added that the review also “concluded that the board acted in good faith… .(and) did not anticipate some instability”. This led to what happened next. “
Taylor also said that the board’s concerns were not about product safety, OpenAI’s finances or statements to customers or business partners. It was “simply a breakdown of trust between the board and Mr. Altman.”
WilmerHale’s investigation began in December, and lawyers filed their report today, which includes dozens of interviews with former OpenAI board members and advisers, current executives and other witnesses. The investigation also involved the review of more than 30,000 documents, according to a news release.
“We agree that Sam and Greg are the right leaders for OpenAI,” OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor said in a press release.
“I’m very grateful to Brett, Larry and WilmerHale,” Altman said in an interview with reporters. Speaking about Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, he added: “Mira in particular has been bringing progress to OpenAI… but during that time in November, she did an incredible job helping to lead the company. .”
He added that he was “happy to be here moving forward” and glad the situation was “over”. He also mentioned that he wished he had acted differently regarding disagreements with the board.
Last November, the OpenAI board ousted Altman, leading to his resignation (or threat to resign), which included an open letter signed by nearly all OpenAI employees and prompted an outcry from investors, including Microsoft. Within a week, Altman was back at the company and the board members who voted to oust him, Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley and Ilya Sutskever ) will exit the company. Adam D’Angelo also voted to oust Altman, but he remains on the board.
When Altman was asked about Sutskever’s condition on a Zoom call, he said he didn’t have any updates to share.
“I love Ilya…I want us to work together for the rest of our careers, mine, whatever,” Altman said. “Nothing to announce today.”
Since then, OpenAI has announced new board members, including former Salesforce co-executive Bret Taylor and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Microsoft Obtained a non-voting Board of Directors observer position.
According to OpenAI, after launching in November 2022, ChatGPT broke records at the time and became the fastest-growing consumer application in history. It currently has approximately 100 million weekly active users and is used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies. the platform.Microsoft invested an additional $10 billion in the company last year, making it the year’s largest artificial intelligence investment, according to PitchBook, and OpenAI has reportedly Make a deal That would have allowed employees to sell shares at a valuation of $86 billion, but the deal reportedly took longer than expected to close due to the events surrounding Altman’s ouster.
The rollercoaster ride the company endured over the past few weeks is still affecting it months later.
Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk this month sued OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, according to court documents filed Thursday. Greg Brockman) for breach of contract and fiduciary duty.
Musk and his lawyers claim in the complaint that the ChatGPT maker “has been transformed into a de facto closed-source subsidiary of Microsoft, the world’s largest technology company.” They also believe that this arrangement violates OpenAI’s founding agreement and 2015 incorporation certification with Musk, a key donor to OpenAI’s early co-founders.
As part of Microsoft’s contract with OpenAI, the tech giant only owns the rights to OpenAI’s “pre-AGI” technology, and it’s up to OpenAI’s board of directors to decide whether the company has reached that milestone. Musk stated in the document that since the reshuffle of OpenAI’s board of directors in November last year (Toner, McCauley and Sutskever were dismissed), the new board of directors “does not have the ability” to independently determine whether OpenAI has reached AGI and thus whether its technology exceeds the scope of AGI. Exclusive agreement with Microsoft.
Lawyers told CNBC they had doubts about the legal viability of Musk’s case, and OpenAI said it planned to file a motion to dismiss all of Musk’s claims.
In response to the high-profile lawsuit, OpenAI reprinted old emails from Musk in which the Tesla and SpaceX executive encouraged the fledgling startup to raise at least $1 billion in funding and agreed to do so over time Over time, it should “start becoming less open” and “not share” the company’s scientific knowledge with the public.
Musk’s lawsuit follows some controversy over Altman’s previous chip efforts and investments.
Just before Ultraman briefly stepped down, he Reportedly seeking billions of dollars A new, yet-to-be-formed chip company codenamed “Tigris” will eventually compete with Nvidia and travel to the Middle East to raise funds from investors.
In 2018, Altman personally invested in a new AI chip startup called Rain Neuromorphics, which is headquartered near OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters. In 2019, OpenAI signed a letter of intent to spend $51 million to purchase Rain’s chips. In December, the United States forced a Saudi Aramco-backed venture capital firm to sell its stake in Rain.
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