OpenAI appoints ex-Twitch boss as interim CEO; Sam Altman joins Microsoft

OpenAI has appointed ex-Twitch boss Emmett Shear to lead the startup, replacing Sam Altman who will join the company’s top backer Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team, the CEO of the software giant said late on Sunday.

“We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI’s new leadership team and working with them,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella posted on social media platform X.

“We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap,” he said.

Shear was named interim CEO, a person briefed on the appointment told Reuters.

OpenAI’s board sacked Altman on Friday, with US media citing concerns that he was underestimating the dangers of its tech and leading the company away from its stated mission — claims his successor has denied.

The decision not to reinstate Altman as CEO of the company behind ChatGPT has confounded efforts by investors and employees of the firm to steady the ship by bringing him back after the board fired him on Friday, a surprise move that rocked the tech world.

They fear his abrupt sacking could lead to a mass exodus of talent and impact an upcoming $86 billion share sale.

Nadella said Altman would join Microsoft to “lead a new advanced AI research team.”

Reuters earlier reported that Altman was discussing a possible return to OpenAI and changing the company’s governance structure, even as he considered launching a new AI venture.

Altman and Greg Brockman, who stepped down from the OpenAI board as chairman as part of the management shuffle, joined executives at the company’s headquarters on Sunday after then interim CEO Mira Murati told staff she invited Altman, The Infomation earlier reported on Sunday.

Nadella said Brockman would also join the software company.

Altman posted an image of himself on X on Sunday wearing an OpenAI guest badge with the caption: “first and last time
i ever wear one of these.”

In a separate post on X, he reshared Nadella’s message with a comment “the mission continues.”

Shear cofounded Twitch and had stepped down from the Amazon.com-owned live video streaming platform earlier this year.

Brockman quit over Altman’s firing on Friday. Their departures blindsided many employees who discovered the abrupt management change from an internal message and the company’s public blog.

Some researchers including Szymon Sidor have also left the company following the CEO change, two people familiar with the matter said. Sidor confirmed quitting.

The Information first reported the appointment of Shear as interim CEO.

Shortly after the internal announcement of Shear’s appointment, distraught employees “streamed out” of OpenAI headquarters in San Francisco, The Information reported.

Dozens of staffers internally announced they were quitting the company on Sunday night, it said, citing a person with knowledge of the situation.

Altman shot to fame with the launch of Open AI’s artificial intelligence chatbot last year, which ignited a race to advance AI research and development, as well as billions being invested in the sector.

OpenAI kicked off the generative AI craze a year ago by releasing ChatGPT. The chatbot became one of the world’s fastest-growing software applications.

OpenAI is in fierce competition with others including Microsoft, Google and Meta, as well as start-ups like Anthropic and Stability AI, to develop its own AI models.

Generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT are trained on vast amounts of data to enable them to answer questions, even complex ones, in human-like language.

They are also used to generate and manipulate imagery.

But the tech has triggered warnings about the dangers of its misuse — from blackmailing people with “deepfake” images to the manipulation of images and harmful disinformation.