OpenAI leadership crisis (2023)
In plain wordsThe five days in November 2023 when OpenAI's board fired chief executive Sam Altman, nearly all staff threatened to quit, and he returned with a new board.
The removal of Sam AltmanSam Altman, prop. n.: An American entrepreneur who co-founded OpenAI and runs it; the company's 2022 release of ChatGPT turned him into one of the public faces of the AI era. as chief executive of OpenAIOpenAI, prop. n.: The American company that makes ChatGPT and the GPT models. It began in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab and is now a for-profit company overseen by a nonprofit foundation. on 17 November 2023 and his reinstatement days later. The board of OpenAI's nonprofit parent — Ilya SutskeverIlya Sutskever, prop. n.: A Russian-born Israeli-Canadian computer scientist who co-built the AlexNet image recognizer, helped found OpenAI and lead its research until 2024, and now heads the startup Safe Superintelligence Inc., Adam D'Angelo, Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner — announced that Altman had been 'not consistently candid in his communications with the board' and removed him; president Greg Brockman was removed as chair and resigned, and chief technology officer Mira Murati became interim chief executive, replaced within days by Emmett Shear. Microsoft, OpenAI's largest investor, offered Altman and Brockman roles leading a new research team, and more than 700 of roughly 770 employees signed a letter threatening to leave unless the board resigned; Sutskever publicly expressed regret. An agreement in principle announced late on 21 November (US time) returned Altman, with a new initial board of Bret Taylor, Larry Summers and D'Angelo. A review by the law firm WilmerHale, completed in March 2024, found a breakdown in trust but concluded that his conduct did not mandate removal, and Altman rejoined the board.
After the 2023 leadership crisis, governance scholars asked whether a nonprofit board can really control a frontier lab.
Origin
Named in news coverage from 17 November 2023, when OpenAI's blog announced a 'leadership transition'; it is also called the OpenAI board crisis, and Altman and staff later referred to it as 'the Blip'.
Usage note
In May 2024 Toner said the board had lost trust because Altman withheld information and gave inaccurate accounts of safety processes, an account OpenAI's board chair, Bret Taylor, disputed. The episode fed debate over whether a nonprofit board can govern a commercial AI laboratory, a question revisited in OpenAI's 2025 restructuring. Sutskever left in 2024 to found Safe Superintelligence Inc.Safe Superintelligence Inc., prop. n.: A company started in 2024 by Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder of OpenAI, with the single goal of building a superintelligent AI that is safe. It sells no products.
Related
- OpenAIOpenAI, prop. n.: The American company that makes ChatGPT and the GPT models. It began in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab and is now a for-profit company overseen by a nonprofit foundation.
- Sam AltmanSam Altman, prop. n.: An American entrepreneur who co-founded OpenAI and runs it; the company's 2022 release of ChatGPT turned him into one of the public faces of the AI era.
- Ilya SutskeverIlya Sutskever, prop. n.: A Russian-born Israeli-Canadian computer scientist who co-built the AlexNet image recognizer, helped found OpenAI and lead its research until 2024, and now heads the startup Safe Superintelligence Inc.
- superalignmentsuperalignment, n.: The problem of keeping AI systems far smarter than humans aligned with human intentions — and the name of OpenAI's short-lived 2023–2024 research team devoted to it.
- AI governanceAI governance, n.: The rules, institutions and habits that shape how AI is built and used — from laws and treaties to technical standards and a company's own review processes.
- effective altruismeffective altruism, n.: A movement that treats charity like a research problem, comparing causes by how much good each dollar or working hour achieves; many of its members came to rank risks from advanced AI as a top priority.
- Safe Superintelligence Inc.Safe Superintelligence Inc., prop. n.: A company started in 2024 by Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder of OpenAI, with the single goal of building a superintelligent AI that is safe. It sells no products.
Sources
- OpenAI (2023). OpenAI announces leadership transition. OpenAI blog, 17 November 2023.
- OpenAI (2024). Review completed & Altman, Brockman to continue to lead OpenAI. OpenAI blog, 8 March 2024.
Mentioned in
Sam AltmanSam Altman, prop. n.: An American entrepreneur who co-founded OpenAI and runs it; the company's 2022 release of ChatGPT turned him into one of the public faces of the AI era., Ilya SutskeverIlya Sutskever, prop. n.: A Russian-born Israeli-Canadian computer scientist who co-built the AlexNet image recognizer, helped found OpenAI and lead its research until 2024, and now heads the startup Safe Superintelligence Inc., Mira MuratiMira Murati, prop. n.: An Albanian-born American engineer who, as OpenAI's chief technology officer, oversaw the launch of ChatGPT, and who founded the AI company Thinking Machines Lab in 2025., Greg BrockmanGreg Brockman, prop. n.: An American engineer who helped start OpenAI in 2015 and became its president, after serving as the first technology chief of the payments company Stripe.