Altman’s sudden departure has been followed by several resignations.
A day after ChatGPT maker OpenAI removed Sam Altman as its CEO, the entrepreneur on Sunday posted a message to the OpenAI team amid reports that the firm’s investors are urging its board to reinstate him.
“i love the openai team so much,” Mr Altman said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
With over 4.3 million views on the post, rumours soon began suggesting that Mr Altman was hinting at his return to the AI firm. The post was soon flooded with messages of users claiming Altman’s comeback. “We’re back,” said one of the replies.
Co-founder Greg Brockman, who quit to protest Altman’s sacking, responded to the post on X with a heart emoji, further raising speculations of the pair’s return.
Altman’s sudden departure has been followed by several resignations including Mr Brockman and reports suggest several more are expected to follow suit in the coming weeks to pressure the board into rethinking its decision.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, one of the largest investors in the artificial intelligence firm, has also reportedly been in touch with Mr Altman, backing him in his next steps to support. Reports suggested Mr Nadella was also surprised by the board’s decision to remove him. He, however, has extended his support to the interim CEO Mira Murati.
Sam Altman, who had been leading OpenAI as CEO since 2019, was sacked by the company’s board on Saturday after it claimed it “lost confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI”.
The board said the decision to remove Mr Altman departure “follows a deliberative review process,” which concluded that “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.” The board referred to differences of opinion with Mr Altman on a variety of issues including AI safety, the speed at which the technology was developing and the way the company was commercialised, reports said.
The decision was met with wide-ranging disagreements from across the firm and investors.