- OpenAI’s new CEO, Emmett Shear, criticized Sam Altman’s ousting as damaging trust in the company.
- Shear said it was “handled very badly” and he wasn’t pushed out over a “disagreement on safety”.
- The Twitch cofounder made the remarks in his first statement as interim CEO in an X post at 1 a.m.
The new CEO of OpenAI said the way Sam Altman was ousted was “handled very badly” and has “seriously damaged our trust.”
Emmett Shear made the comments in his first statement as the interim chief of OpenAI in an X post at around 1:00 a.m. West Coast time on Monday.
“OpenAI employees are extremely impressive, as you might have guessed, and mission-driven in the extreme,’ he said. “And it’s clear that the process and communications around Sam’s removal has been handled very badly, which has seriously damaged our trust.”
The Twitch cofounder also said he questioned what led to the removal of Sam Altman as CEO before accepting the role and said it wasn’t over a “disagreement on safety” and that the reasoning of the company’s board was different.
“I’m not crazy enough to take this job without board support for commercializing our awesome models,” he wrote.
Shear claims he accepted the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to step up as the interim CEO only “a few hours” after he got the call offering him the top job. He said he accepted the position as he believes he “had a duty to help” and that OpenAI is “one of the most important companies currently in existence.”
It comes after OpenAI cofounder Altman was forced out of the company Friday. In a statement announcing his departure, the board said it “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.” The decision left Microsoft employees “completely shocked”, some workers told Insider’s Kali Hays and Ashley Stewart.
In a dramatic turn of events over the weekend, Altman was poised to return and he gave the board a deadline of 5:00 p.m. PT Saturday to resign if he was to come back, The Verge reported. The deadline was reportedly later extended to 5:00 p.m. PT Sunday but they failed to reach an agreement.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella then announced in the early hours of Monday morning that Altman and former OpenAI president Greg Brockman are joining the tech giant, which is OpenAI’s biggest shareholder, to lead a “new advanced AI research team.”
OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, made outside of normal working hours.
Are you a current or former OpenAI employee? Got a tip? Email Jyoti Mann at [email protected] or via DM on X @jyoti_mann1. Reach out via a non-work device.
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