Sam Altman, a co-founder of OpenAI, will take over as CEO again shortly after the board ousted him, the company announced.
The IT business said that the accord “in principle” calls for the appointment of new board members.
Observers of the business were shocked when Mr. Altman was fired on Friday, and employees threatened to depart in droves if he wasn’t brought back.
In a post on X, the previous Twitter, Mr. Altman stated, “I am looking forward to returning to OpenAI.”
“I love OpenAI,” he said, “and everything I’ve done in the last few days has been to support the continued mission and teamwork of this organization.”
Co-founder Greg Brockman resigned last week after the board chose to oust Mr. Altman, plunging the renowned artificial intelligence (AI) startup into disarray.
Three non-employee board members—Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner—as well as Ilya Sutskever, a third co-founder and the company’s principal scientist, made the choice.
However, Mr. Sutskever signed the staff letter urging the board to change course and apologized on Monday for the incident involving X.
Then, Microsoft, the company’s largest investor and a user of OpenAI technology in many of its products, made Mr. Altman an offer to head “a new advanced AI research team” at the behemoth.
Subsequently, on Wednesday, OpenAI said that it had approved in principle Mr. Altman’s return to the tech business and that it would partially reorganize the board of directors that had fired him.
According to OpenAI, current director Adam D’Angelo will be joined by former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor.
Additionally, Mr. Brockman announced his return to the company in a post on X.
The interim CEO of OpenAI, Emmett Shear, expressed his “deep pleasure” upon Mr. Altman’s return following “72 very intense hours of work.”
CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella stated that the company was “encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board”.
“We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”
Many employees have expressed their excitement at the news online. Cory Decareaux, an employee, commented on Linkedin, “We’re back – and we’ll be better than ever.”