American artificial intelligence company OpenAI Inc appointed ex-Twitch boss Emmett Shear to take over as interim chief executive officer, while it initially proposed insider Mira Murati to lead OpenAI.
The company board said Sam Altman to depart as CEO and step down from the board of directors on Friday. The board also named Mira Murati, chief technology officer of the company would serve as interim CEO, effective immediately.
The board also stated Greg Brockman will be stepping down as chairman of the board as part of this leadership transition.
About 700 employees from the company demanded revamp of the board and reinstatement of Altman and Brockman through a letter to the board, on Monday. Twelve employees, including a member from the board, Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist and Murati signed the letter.
Also, the letter placed a demand of appointing two new independent directors, namely Bret Taylor, former Salesforce CEO and Will Hurd, a former United States representative.
The letter clearly stated the employees’ disappointment in the leadership shift and if their demand remain unattended, they would choose to quit their employment and work with the newly announced Microsoft’s subsidiary to be run by Altman.
Sutskever, member of the board, on Monday, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”
The board terminated Altman’s leadership after a deliberative review process. Also, the board concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board said it no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.
OpenAI’s board of directors included Sutskever, independent directors comprise of Adam D’Angelo, CEO of Quora, Tasha McCauley, tech entrepreneur, and Helen Toner from Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
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