After the dismissal of Sam Altman from the post of head of OpenAI last week, the company faced internal turmoil and conflicts. More than 600 OpenAI employees have signed a letter threatening to leave the company unless the board of directors resigns and returns both Altman and co-founder and former president Greg Brockman to the position. The letter says: «The process through which you terminated Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board has jeopardized all of this work and undermined our mission and company. Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI.» Among the signees of the letter was Ilya Sutskever, chief researcher and member of the board of directors of OpenAI, who is accused of coordinating a conspiracy against Altman. Sutskever recently wrote on Twitter: «I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.» Today it became known that Kira Murati, who replaced Altman, was replaced by Emmett Shire, the former head of Twitch. Almost simultaneously, Satya Nadella, the head of Microsoft, announced that Altman and Brockman had joined Microsoft to lead a new artificial intelligence research unit. OpenAI employees in their letter expressed their willingness to follow Altman to Microsoft, claiming that they were offered positions in the new Microsoft division. They wrote: «Microsoft has guaranteed us seats in their new subsidiary if we decide to join.» In fact, this could lead to Microsoft actually acquiring OpenAI, which has about 770 employees.
