OpenAI Board Member Ilya Sutskever Expresses Regret For Sam Altman's Ousting

OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever played a vital role in the dismissal of Sam Altman. In a surprising turn of events, the renowned Chief Scientist of OpenAI is now expressing deep regret for Altman's ousting.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Sutskever said he regrets his involvement in the decision to oust Altman as CEO.

"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," he wrote.

It is worth noting that the organisation removed Altman from his CEO role citing a lack of "consistency in communication". While OpenAI investors spared no effort to reinstate Altman as CEO, the company's board refused to change its decision.

In fact, the OpenAI board went on to appoint ex-Twitch boss Emmett Shear as interim CEO. Apparently, board members could not meet the deadline to reinstate Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman.

OpenAI employees threaten resignation

Due to this failure, a considerable number of OpenAI employees threatened to quit and publicly expressed solidarity with the former CEO on social media.

According to a report by Business Today, nearly 500 OpenAI employees threatened to resign unless the company's board brings Altman back as CEO and reinstates co-founder Greg Brockman.

After Altman joined Microsoft, OpenAI staff declared their intention to follow suit in a collective letter. Amid the turmoil at OpenAI, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott offered job invitations to OpenAI researchers and other workers who have quit or threatened to resign in the wake of Altman's dismissal.

"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," 490 employees told OpenAI's Board of Directors. "Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI," OpenAI employees noted in the open letter.

Interestingly, Sutskever is one of the letter's signees. Sutskever, who is a member of the board has recently been accused of coordinating the boardroom coup against Altman.

In an X post, Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella announced that Altman would become CEO of a new research group inside Microsoft.

The tech behemoth has invested a lot of money into OpenAI. Notably, it released AI copilots, which allude to conversational interfaces that use large language models, using OpenAI's technology. Altman also shared Nadella's message with the words, "the mission continues".

In a separate post on X, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said his company is willing to hire OpenAI researchers. He invited them to join the company's Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team under Silvio Savarese.