OpenAI board will go after my shares if I go off: Sacked CEO Sam Altman

San Francisco, Nov 18

Sacked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Saturday started spilling the beans, saying if he starts to reveal the secrets, the board of the ChatGPT company will go after him for the "full value of his shares".

In a latest post on X, Altman who was ousted as the board “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,” said it has been a weird experience for him in many ways.

“Today was a weird experience in many ways. but one unexpected one is that it has been sorta like reading your own eulogy while you’re still alive. the outpouring of love is awesome,” he posted.

“One takeaway: go tell your friends how great you think they are,” he added.

In the next X post, he said that “If I start going off, the OpenAI board should go after me for the full value of my shares”.

An X follower reacted: “This is a better cliffhanger than any show I’ve ever watched, I’d give anything to know what happened”.

OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman also stepped down as chairman of the board after "today's news" but remains at the company.

“Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today. We too are still trying to figure out exactly what happened,” Brockman posted on Saturday.

He said that last night (Friday US time), “Sam got a text from Ilya asking to talk at noon Friday. Sam joined a Google Meet and the whole board, except Greg, was there. Ilya told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon”.

“Greg was told that he was being removed from the board (but was vital to the company and would retain his role) and that Sam had been fired. Around the same time, OpenAI published a blog post,” he further posted.

Chief technology officer Mira Murati will be the interim CEO, effective immediately and the company will conduct a search for a permanent CEO successor.

“As far as we know, the management team was made aware of this shortly after, other than Mira who found out the night prior… We will be fine. Greater things are coming soon,” said Brockman.