New Book Details Conflicts Behind Sam Altman's Brief OpenAI Ouster
A forthcoming book reveals how hidden conflicts over safety approvals and financial disclosures led the OpenAI board to briefly fire CEO Sam Altman before employee pressure forced his rapid reinstatement.
A new book by Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey reveals the hidden conflicts that cause OpenAI's board to fire CEO Sam Altman in November 2023. Board members discover that Altman misrepresents the safety approvals for GPT-4 enhancements and hides unauthorized Microsoft testing in India. Furthermore, the board learns that Altman personally owns the $175 million OpenAI Startup Fund, which prevents company investors from seeing any profits from it.
As distrust grows, CTO Mira Murati expresses doubts about Altman's leadership and joins board members Helen Toner and Ilya Sutskever in documenting his actions. The board votes to fire Altman and appoint Murati as interim CEO, but they hesitate to publicly explain their reasoning. In a dramatic standoff, Murati and other executives give the board an ultimatum to either explain the firing, resign, or watch the entire executive team quit.
Nearly all OpenAI employees sign a letter threatening to leave if Altman is not reinstated, prompting the board to reverse its decision. Since his return, Murati and most of the dissenting directors leave the company. OpenAI now focuses heavily on commercial growth, considering a shift to a fully for-profit structure while preparing to launch GPT-5 and the new o3 reasoning model in the coming months.