Warning from OpenAI leaders helped trigger Sam Altman’s ouster

Although the board members didn’t use the language of abuse to describe Altman’s behavior, these complaints echoed some of their interactions with Altman over the years, and they had already been debating the board’s ability to hold the CEO accountable. Several board members thought Altman had lied to them, for example, as part of a campaign to remove board member Helen Toner after she published a paper criticizing OpenAI, the people said.

The new complaints triggered a review of Altman’s conduct during which the board weighed the devotion Altman had cultivated among factions of the company against the risk that OpenAI could lose key leaders who found interacting with him highly toxic. They also considered reports from several employees who said they feared retaliation from Altman: One told the board that Altman was hostile after the employee shared critical feedback with the CEO and that he undermined the employee on that person’s team, the people said.

“It is clear that there were real misunderstandings between me and members of the board,” Altman wrote on X. “For my part, it is incredibly important to learn from this experience and apply those learnings as we move forward as a company.”

The complaints about Altman’s alleged behavior, which have not previously been reported, were a major factor in the board’s abrupt decision to fire Altman on Nov. 17, according to the people. Initially cast as a clash over the safe development of artificial intelligence, Altman’s firing was at least partially motivated by the sense that his behavior would make it impossible for the board to oversee the CEO.

Altman was reinstated as CEO five days later, after employees released a letter signed by a large percentage of OpenAI’s 800-person staff, including most senior managers, and threatening mass resignations.

“We believe Sam is the best leader for OpenAI,” said company spokesperson Hannah Wong. “The senior leadership team was unanimous in asking for Sam’s return as CEO and for the board’s resignation, actions backed by an open letter signed by over 95% of our employees.”

Anna Makanju, OpenAI’s vice president of global affairs, who signed the letter, echoed the sentiment in a statement shared by the company: “In my experience working closely with Sam, he brings passion to the work and to the mission. While he has strong opinions, he values my team’s counsel, listens to diverse perspectives, and consistently encourages open and honest discussions.”

Now back at the helm of OpenAI, Altman may find that the company is less united than the waves of heart emojis that greeted his return on social media might suggest.

Some employees said Altman’s camp began undermining the board’s decision shortly after he was removed as CEO, the people said. Within hours, messages dismissed the board as illegitimate and decried Altman’s firing as a coup by OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, according to the people.

On social media, in news reports and on the anonymous app Blind, which requires members to sign up with a work email address to post, people identified as current OpenAI employees also described facing intense peer pressure to sign the mass-resignation letter.

Some OpenAI employees have rejected the idea that there was any coercion to sign the letter. “Half the company had signed between the hours of 2 and 3am,” a member of OpenAI’s technical staff, who tweets under the pseudonym roon, posted on X. “That’s not something that can be accomplished by peer pressure.”

Joanne Jang, who works in products at OpenAI, tweeted that no influence had been at play. “The…