OpenAI employees threaten to quit if the board doesn’t resign and reinstate Sam Altman

Over 500 employees at artificial intelligence company OpenAI have threatened to quit unless the board resigns and ousted CEO Sam Altman is reinstated. A total of 505 staffers have mentioned that they will be crossing over to Microsoft, which has now hired Altman, cofounder Greg Brockman, and some other researchers for a new AI research division.

The OpenAI board suddenly fired Altman on Friday after claiming “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.” Mira Murati, who was also appointed interim CEO, was replaced on Monday after she tried to negotiate Altman's return with the help of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

 Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist and a member of its board, is one of the letter's signees who has been accused of being behind the coup. Sutskever wrote 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 will do everything I can to reunite the company."

In the letter, the OpenAI employees state that “the process through which you terminated Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board has jeopardized all of this work and undermined our mission and company. Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI.”

The staffers added, “Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join." OpenAI currently has 770 employees, so the departure would leave OpenAI struggling to continue the development of its large language models and other AI projects.