Ousted OpenAI head Sam Altman to lead Microsoft’s new AI team
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 16, 2023.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
Former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team, according to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Nadella said on social media platform X that Altman and former OpenAI President and Board Chair Greg Brockman, alongside other colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team.
Tech giant Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has a close technology partnership with the company.
“We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success,” Nadella said.
“We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners.”
Altman himself reshared Nadella’s post, adding a somewhat cryptic comment to it: “The mission continues.”
Altman had been leading the company since 2019. OpenAI’s board announced late Friday that it was removing Altman and replacing him on an interim basis with technology chief Mira Murati. The post said that Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board.”
This did not dissuade a group of OpenAI investors, who were pushing to bring Altman back as CEO over the weekend.
Late Sunday night, OpenAI said it was bringing on board former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear to run the artificial intelligence company. Just hours after, Nadella announced that Altman and Brockman — who was removed from his role as chairman on Friday alongside Altman, and later quit the company altogether — would be absorbed in-house into the Microsoft team.
Nadella said Sunday night he was looking forward to getting to know Shear and OpenAI’s new leadership team.
OpenAI, which was reportedly in talks as recently as last month to sell employee shares to investors at an $86 billion valuation, emerged as a household name this year after releasing its ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022. ChatGPT allows users to type in simple text queries and retrieve answers that can lead to more in-depth conversations.
— CNBC’s Ari Levy and Jordan Novet contributed to this report.
