Following Sam Altman's rollercoaster of a return as OpenAI's CEO, the company announced that it will now include Microsoft as a non-voting observer on its board. The question remains as to why the firm's largest investor wasn't on its board in the first place, but this seems to be somewhat addressed for now, at least. Altman is joined by co-founder Greg Brockman who resumes his role as President, whereas Mira Murati, who very briefly served as interim CEO throughout the drama, will return to her role as CTO.

The announcement also confirms a new board consisting of former Salesforce CEO Bret Taylor (chair), former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and original member Adam D'Angelo, who is also Quora's co-founder and CEO. It was earlier rumored that Altman's exit was partly influenced by D'Angelo's seeming conflict of interest, as OpenAI was developing a potential competitor to Quora's Poe service — the latter offers OpenAI's ChatGPT and GPT-4, along with several other text-generating AI models.

D'Angelo's presence on OpenAI's new board came as a surprise, and Altman took to X to address the elephant in the room. "Quora is a large customer of OpenAI and we found it helpful to have customer representation on our Board." The exec added that D'Angelo "has always been very clear... about the potential conflict and doing whatever he needed to do," including offering to leave the board, if necessary. As to why the original board wanted Altman out, he said "it is clear that there were real misunderstandings between me and members of the board."

OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever was a former board member who allegedly led the ouster of Altman. The exec later openly admitted that he "deeply regret my participation in the board's actions" (with Elon Musk begging for attention in his thread), and he had since voiced his support for Altman's return as CEO. In his open message, Altman says "I harbor zero ill will towards him," and that his team is figuring out a way to let Sutskever continue his work at OpenAI.

In the same official announcement, OpenAI's new Chair, Taylor, assured that the company will "enhance the governance structure," and put together "an independent committee of the Board to oversee a review of the recent events," for the sake of the organization's stability.

GM is massively slashing spending on its self-driving vehicle subsidiary Cruise after a string of debilitating setbacks, according to a conference call by company executives transcribed by TechCrunch. GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra said that operations would resume in some capacity, but that any plans for Cruise moving forward would be more “deliberate.”

To that end, the cuts will amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in the next year. This is expected to result in widespread layoffs at the San Francisco-based company that currently employees nearly 4,000 people. Earlier this month, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt told staffers at an all-hands meeting that he’d have information regarding layoffs in the coming weeks, but he resigned shortly thereafter along with co-founder Dan Kan.

It looks like the entire company may get an overhaul, with CFO Paul Jacobson saying in today’s conference call that there would be specific restructuring information in the coming weeks after two independent safety and incident review boards finish their work. These boards were instituted after a collision between a Cruise robotaxi and a pedestrian. It was also found that the company’s driverless algorithm had trouble recognizing children, which is never good.

GM has invested billions of dollars in Cruise since acquiring the company in 2016. This spending has increased in recent years as the company had planned an aggressive launch in more than a dozen cities throughout the US before everything fell apart. To that end, GM’s latest earnings report indicates that Cruise spent $732 million in the first three quarters of 2023.

The point of today’s call wasn’t just to offer ill tidings for Cruise. Barra and Jacobson also noted that the recently-penned labor deal with United Autoworkers would cost GM $9.3 billion in the long-term, but the company remains optimistic about future growth, noting an adjusted earnings of $12.7 billion in 2023 and an accelerated $10 billion share buyback program.

GM has also named new executives to run Cruise. Mo Elshenawy was promoted from VP of engineering to co-president, with GM’s previous EVP of legal and policy taking up the other co-president role. GM’s CEO said that the company has “a lot of confidence with what the two co-presidents will do,” but notes that “GM will be leaning in to make sure that it meets our strict requirements from a safety perspective.”

Broadcom's mega $61 billion VMware acquisition has closed following considerable scrutiny by regulators, the company announced in a press release. With China recently granting approval for the acquisition with added restrictions, the network chip manufacturer had secured all the required approvals. 

"Broadcom has received legal merger clearance in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, Israel, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and foreign investment control clearance in all necessary jurisdictions," the company said. "We are excited to welcome VMware to Broadcom and bring together our engineering-first, innovation-centric teams."

The Broadcom/VMware deal lacked the glamour of tech's other mega acquisition involving Microsoft and Activision. However, San Jose-based Broadcom's products form the structure of much of the internet, as they're widely used for data centers, cloud providers and network infrastructure. VMware, meanwhile, makes virtualization and cloud computing software that allows corporations to safely link local networks with public cloud access. 

That made VMware a logical target for Broadcom, but it also placed the acquisition in the crosshairs of regulators in multiple regions. The European Commission, for one, was concerned that Broadcom could harm competition by limiting interoperability between rival hardware and VMware's server virtualization software. It also worried the company could either prevent or degrade access to VMware's software, or bundle VMware with its own hardware products.

Broadcom gained EU approval for the deal in the summer though, mainly by providing IP access and source code for key network fiber optic components to its main rival, Marvell. The EU also concluded that fears of VMware bundling were unfounded and that Broadcom would still face competition in the storage adapter and NIC markets. 

There were also concerns that tensions between China and the US could scuttle the deal, after the Biden administration announced new rules in October making it harder to export high-end chips to China. However, approval in that market was announced yesterday, with conditions imposed by China on how Broadcom sells products locally. Namely, it had to ensure that VMware's server software was interoperable with rival hardware, China's regulator said in a statement. 

Sam Altman is returning to OpenAI as CEO after his firing five days ago launched the company onto one of the wildest rollercoaster rides in tech history, the company announced in post on X. Former president Greg Brockman, who resigned on Friday in protest, will also return, The Verge's sources say. The original board has been disbanded and replaced by a new, temporary three-man board with Bret Taylor (chair), Larry Summers and original board member Adam D'Angelo. 

The agreement has been struck "in principal," and must still be approved by all parties. The only job of the initial board will be to vet and appoint a permanent board with up to 9 members that will resent OpenAI's governance. One of those seats will likely to go Microsoft and Altman himself, The Verge reported.

Altman confirmed the news in a separate post. "With the new board and with Satya's support, I'm looking forward to returning to OpenAI and building on our strong partnership with [Microsoft]," he said. That means Altman likely won't be joining Microsoft after all, though he added that he felt his decision at the time "was the best path for me and the team." 

"We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella added in another post. "We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance."

Another major OpenAI investor, Thrive Capital, issued a statement calling Altman's return "the best outcome for the company, its employees, those who build on their technologies and the world at large." Helen Toner, who reportedly had a hand in ousting Altman in the first place, said "and now, we all get some sleep." 

The timeline over the last week reads like "a legit telenovela," as one of my colleagues put it. It commenced with the shocking termination of CEO Altman on Friday, November 17th, followed by Brockman announcing that we would quit in protest. 

Developing...

Even though it seemed that former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman would lead a new AI research division at Microsoft, he might still get his old job back. According to Bloomberg, the OpenAI board — which caused chaos at the company when it fired Altman on Friday — has reopened discussions with the former chief executive regarding his possible reinstatement.

The talks are said to involve board member (and Quora CEO) Adam D’Angelo as well as OpenAI investors, some of whom have been pushing for Altman's return. According to the report, board members "largely refused to engage" with Altman until Monday, so these latest talks are said to be a significant development.

Meanwhile, Kevin Scott, Microsoft's chief technology officer, said that his company will match the compensation OpenAI workers are currently receiving if they jump ship. Most of the company's workers have threatened to walk unless the OpenAI board resigns and reinstates Altman and former president Greg Brockman (who resigned in protest over the board booting out Altman). They warned the board on Monday that Microsoft is willing to hire them too, and Scott has confirmed that.

“To my partners at OpenAI: We have seen your petition and appreciate your desire potentially to join Sam Altman at Microsoft’s new AI Research Lab,” Scott wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Know that if needed, you have a role at Microsoft that matches your compensation and advances our collective mission.”

It's unclear whether Scott's offer is contingent on Altman officially joining Microsoft, as CNBC notes. In any case, OpenAI workers may not have too much trouble finding a new job if they resign, as many tech companies are battling to hire AI experts. For instance, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that any OpenAI researcher who has quit will receive matching salary and equity if they join his company.

Meanwhile, in interviews he gave after saying Altman and Brockman were joining his company on Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reiterated that he wants to keep working with OpenAI. However, he noted "that depends on the people of OpenAI staying there or coming to Microsoft. So I’m open to both options, but one thing I will not do is stop innovating." Nadella also said that “At this point, I think it’s very clear that something has to change around the governance" at the ChatGPT operator.

After Altman's sudden firing, he and Brockman spent the weekend in crunch talks with the OpenAI board in an effort to get their jobs back. Those initial talks proved unsuccessful, and the board has appointed former Twitch chief executive Emmett Shear as interim CEO. 

The OpenAI board has declined to share the exact reasoning for its decision to fire Altman, though it claimed that he had not been "consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities." After he took the reins, Shear said he'd bring in an independent investigator "to dig into the entire process leading up to this point and generate a full report.”

It’s been an eventful weekend at OpenAI’s headquarters in San Francisco. In a surprise move Friday, the company’s board of directors fired co-founder and CEO Sam Altman, which set off an institutional crisis that has seen senior staff resign in protest with nearly 700 rank-and-file employees threatening to do the same. Now the board is facing calls for its own resignation, even after Microsoft had already swooped in to hire Altman’s cohort away for its own AI projects. Here’s everything you need to know about the situation to hold your own at Thanksgiving on Thursday.

How it started

Thursday, November 16

This saga began forever ago by internet standards, or last Thursday in the common parlance. Per a tweet from former-company president Greg Brockman, that was when OpenAI’s head researcher and board member, Ilya Sutskever, contacted Altman to set up a meeting the following day at noon. In that same tweet chain (posted Friday night), Brockman accused the company of informing the first interim-CEO, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, of the upcoming firings at that time as well:

- Last night, Sam got a text from Ilya asking to talk at noon Friday. Sam joined a Google Meet and the whole board, except Greg, was there. Ilya told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon.

- At 12:19PM, Greg got a text from Ilya asking for a quick call. At 12:23PM, Ilya sent a Google Meet link. Greg was told that he was being removed from the board (but was vital to the company and would retain his role) and that Sam had been fired. Around the same time, OpenAI published a blog post.

- As far as we know, the management team was made aware of this shortly after, other than Mira who found out the night prior.

Friday, November 17

Everything kicked off at that Friday noon meeting. Brockman was informed that he would be demoted — removed from the board but remain president of the company, reporting to Murati once she’s installed. Barely ten minutes later, Brockman alleges, Altman was informed of his termination as the public announcement was published. Sutskever subsequently sent a company-wide email stating that “Change can be scary,” per The Information.

Later that afternoon, the OpenAI board along with new CEO Murati addressed a “shocked” workforce in an all-hands meeting. During that meeting, Sutskever reportedly told employees the moves will ultimately “make us feel closer."

At this point, Microsoft, which just dropped a cool $10 billion into OpenAI’s coffers in January as part of a massive, multi-year investment deal with the company weighed in on the day’s events. CEO Satya Nadella released the following statement:

As you saw at Microsoft Ignite this week, we’re continuing to rapidly innovate for this era of AI, with over 100 announcements across the full tech stack from AI systems, models and tools in Azure, to Copilot. Most importantly, we’re committed to delivering all of this to our customers while building for the future. We have a long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything we need to deliver on our innovation agenda and an exciting product roadmap; and remain committed to our partnership, and to Mira and the team. Together, we will continue to deliver the meaningful benefits of this technology to the world.

By Friday evening, things really began to spiral. Brockman announced via Twitter that he is quitting in protest. Director of research Jakub Pachocki and head of preparedness Aleksander Madry announced that they too are resigning in solidarity.

How it’s going

Saturday/Sunday, November 18/19

On Saturday, November 18, the backtracking begins. Altman’s Friday termination notice states that, “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 no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”

The following morning, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap wrote in internal communications obtained by Axios that the decision “took [the management team] by surprise” and that management had been in conversation “with the board to try to better understand the reasons and process behind their decision.”

“We can say definitively that the board’s decision was not made in response to malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” Lightcap wrote. “This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board … We still share your concerns about how the process has been handled, are working to resolve the situation, and will provide updates as we’re able.”

A report from The Information midmorning Saturday revealed that OpenAI’s prospective share sale being led by Thrive Capital, valued at $86 billion, is in jeopardy following Altman’s firing. Per three unnamed sources within the company, even if the sale does go through, it will likely be at a lower valuation. The price of OpenAI shares has tripled since the start of the year, and quadrupled since 2021, so current and former employees, many of whom were offered stock as hiring incentives, were in line for a big payout. A payout might not be coming anymore.

On Saturday afternoon, Altman announced on Twitter that he would be forming a new AI startup with Brockman’s assistance, potentially doing something with AI chips to counter NVIDIA’s dominance in the sector. At this point OpenAI’s many investors, rightly concerned that their money was about to go up in generative smoke, began pressuring the board of directors to reinstate Altman and Brockman.

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella reportedly led that charge. Bloomberg’s sources say Nadella was “furious” over the decision to oust Altman — especially having been given just “a few minutes” of notice before the public announcement was made — even going so far as to recruit Altman and his cohort for their own AI efforts.

Microsoft also has leverage in the form of its investment, much of which is in the form of cloud compute credits (which the GPT platform needs to operate) rather than hard currency. Denying those credits to OpenAI would effectively hobble the startup’s operations.

Interim-CEO Mira Murati’s 48-hour tenure at the head of OpenAI came to an end on Sunday when the board named Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear as the new interim-CEO. According to Bloomberg reporter Ashley Vance, Murati had planned to hire Altman and Brockman back in a move designed to force the board of directors into action. Instead, the board “went into total silence” and “found their own CEO Emmett Shear.” Altman spent Sunday at OpenAI HQ, posting an image of himself holding up a green “Guest” badge.

“First and last time i ever wear one of these,” he wrote.

Monday, November 20

On Monday morning, an open letter from more than 500 OpenAI employees circulated online. The group threatened to quit and join the new Microsoft subsidiary unless the board itself resigns and brings back Altman and Brockman (and presumably the other two as well). The number of signatories has since grown to nearly 700.

Doesn’t look like that will be happening, however — despite Sutskever’s early morning mea culpa. The board has already missed its deadline to respond to the open letter, Microsoft has already hired away both Altman and Brockman and Shear has already been named interim-CEO.

Shear stepped down as CEO of Twitch in March, where he led the company for more than 16 years and has been working as a partner at Y Combinator for the past seven months. Amazon acquired the live video streaming app in 2014 for just under $1 billion.

“I took this job because I believe that OpenAI is one of the most important companies currently in existence. When the board shared the situation and asked me to take the role, I did not make the decision lightly,” Shear told OpenAI employees Monday.

“Ultimately I felt that I had a duty to help if I could,” he added.

Shear was quick to point out that Altman’s termination was “handled very badly, which has seriously damaged our trust.” As such he announced the company will hire an independent investigator to report on the run-up to Friday’s SNAFU.

“The board did *not* remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety, their reasoning was completely different from that,” Shear continued. “I’m not crazy enough to take this job without board support for commercializing our awesome models.”

Following his departure to Microsoft on Monday, Alman posted, “the OpenAI leadership team, particularly mira brad and jason but really all of them, have been doing an incredible job through this that will be in the history books.”

“Incredibly proud of them,” he wrote.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Cruise, the self-driving car company owned by General Motors, confirmed to Reuters that its co-founder and chief product officer Daniel Kan has resigned. Kan’s departure comes just a day after the company’s CEO Kyle Vogt announced his resignation on X after a 10-year tenure. Kan is said to have announced his resignation over Slack, however, the reasoning for his departure has not been made clear by the company.

The company’s executive reshuffling follows a public relations nightmare that started last month when a Cruise robotaxi hit a pedestrian in San Francisco and pinned them under the vehicle. The parent company, GM, is still conducting a safety probe on the accident and both autonomous and manual vehicle operations at Cruise remain suspended. The company’s public image has been reeling from the accident ever since, and about 950 robotaxis had to be recalled by GM. The California DMV suspended Cruises’ driverless permits shortly after, and that ruling has remained in place.

In a recent tweet, Cruise said that the company is focused on taking steps “to rebuild public trust.” Things have yet to look up for the company, especially after an expose by The Intercept revealed that the company knew its self-driving cars have trouble recognizing children and large holes in the roads. Furthermore, the former CEO said that the company would have to lay off an undisclosed number of employees and staff members in a memo.

Cruise has not made any statements about finding replacements for either its CEO or chief product officer as of yet. The New York Times reports that “instead of installing a new chief executive” General Motors has appointed two new members to the company board and Mo Elshenawy, Cruise’s executive vice president of engineering, will take up the role of President.

Following his surprise firing on Friday, currently-former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman might not be as out of a job as we initially thought he was, according to new word from The Verge on Saturday. Reportedly, sources close to Altman say that the board itself, in a stunning reversal, have "agreed in principal" to resign while reinstating him to his former position. However, the board has has since reportedly missed a 5pm PT deadline regarding the decision.

Shortly after Altman's firing on Friday afternoon, several senior staffers — including former Chairman and President Greg Brockman, Director of Research Jakub Pachocki, Head of Preparedness Aleksander Madry and Senior Researcher Szymon Sidor — tendered their resignations in protest. More departures are reportedly still incoming as of publication of this story. Numerous additional OpenAI staffers were set to quit in solidarity at that meeting. They're reportedly willing to follow Altman, a la Jerry Maguire, to a new AI startup venture should he decide to launch one. 

An internal memo circulated after Altman's dismissal argued that his termination was not related to "malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” per Axios' reporting.

Microsoft is a major investor in the OpenAI venture — having injected some $13 billion into the project's coffers this past January as part of a long term partnership between the two. It maintains the "utmost confidence" in OpenAI interim-CEO Mira Murati, and "remains confident" in the partnership overall. 

Despite those assurances, rank-and-file employees were given little notice prior to the official announcement going out (Altman himself receiving even less) of the change in leadership. Altman had, in the days leading up to his termination, remained an active supporter and recruiter for the firm, appearing at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum less than a day prior to his firing. 

According to the New York Times, neither Altman nor Brockman are guaranteed a return to power, largely on account of the company's non-profit origins, which preclude investors from directing company-wide decisions. They instead leave those choices to members of the board itself. Altman and Brockman were both members of the OpenAI board. However, with their departures, only lead researcher, Ilya Sutskever; Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo; director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology Helen Toner; and computer scientist Tasha McCauley remain members — at least, through the weekend.

An internal memo sent to OpenAI staff on Saturday after former CEO Sam Altman’s abrupt firing reiterates that “a breakdown in communication” led to the decision, not “malfeasance or anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices,” according to Axios and The New York Times. The memo obtained by both publications was sent to employees by OpenAI’s Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap.

Speculation has been nonstop since Altman was ousted unexpectedly as CEO on Friday and dropped from the company’s board of directors, with little concrete information from OpenAI itself to go on. In its announcement of the decision, the board said only that he was not “consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.” The board named Mira Murati, OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer, as interim CEO.

In response, OpenAI’s now-former president, Greg Brockman, announced he was stepping down too, tweeting, “Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today.” Three senior researchers later resigned as well, according to The Information. Now, in another report, sources told The Information that Altman already has a “new venture” in the works, and he plans to bring Brockman and possibly others on with him. It’s as yet unclear if this venture is separate from Altman’s other known upcoming projects, including a purported collaboration with former Apple designer Jony Ive.

Numerous reports in the aftermath have attempted to provide an explanation for Altman’s firing, with some claiming there were concerns over the rapid development of the company’s AI products and, according to journalist Kara Swisher, its “profit driven direction.” In Saturday’s memo, per Axios, Lightcap wrote that the announcement “took us all by surprise,” and “we have had multiple conversations with the board to try to better understand the reasons and process behind their decision.”

The sudden shakeup could now have ramifications for the impending sale of OpenAI’s employee shares, valued at roughly $86 billion, The Information reported. In a cryptic tweet on Saturday, Altman quipped, “if i start going off, the openai board should go after me for the full value of my shares (sic).”

In a surprise shakeup of its c-suite Friday, OpenAI's board of directors announced that CEO Sam Altman is leaving both the company and the board, effective immediately. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati has been named interim CEO.

Altman oustering reportedly follows an internal "deliberative review process" which found he had not been "consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities," the company announced. As such, "the board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."

The board of directors thanked Altman' for his "many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI," but believes that "as the leader of the company’s research, product, and safety functions, Mira is exceptionally qualified to step into the role of interim CEO. We have the utmost confidence in her ability to lead OpenAI during this transition period.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.