More than 700 employees of OpenAI are threatened with termination

A board member involved in replacing Sam Altman as CEO joined most employees in calling for the decision to be overturned.

On Monday, more as 700 of OpenAI's 770 employees signed a letter with "threatening" content. They threaten to with the cancellation, which puts the future of OpenAI in the balance. Employees of one of the most successful AI start-ups are demanding that recently ousted CEO Sam Altman come back and take his former position at the company.

One of the members of the board of directors, who fired Altman on Friday, changed his mind on Monday and signed a letter with the other employees. Three people familiar with the matter confirmed this to the New York Times.

ÄŒmember of the board of directors Ilya Sutskever also announced on the social network X, formerly Twitter, that he "deeply regrets his participation in the actions of the board".

Altman's ouster by the four-member board -- which said Altman had not been honest with them but did not explain how -- set off a wild weekend in which Altman joined Microsoft to launch a new project on in the field of artificial intelligence. Microsoft, which invested $13 billion in OpenAI, actually has a 49% stake in the company.

The employee letter requesting Altman's reappointment says that Microsoft has assured OpenAI employees that there are positions for them if they decide to join its new artificial intelligence division.

OpenAI and Microsoft declined to comment. Emmett Shear, who was appointed by OpenAI's board of directors as interim CEO late Sunday night, could not comment to a reporter on Monday because he was reportedly on another call.

The upheaval calls into question the future of one of the fastest-growing companies in Silicon Valley history. At a time when the industry was shaking due to mass layoffs, it was OpenAI that provided hundreds of new jobs.

"It is the debacle of the decade,” said the founder of Lexion Gaurav Oberoi, a start-up that relies on OpenAI to help companies in simplifying legal, sales and supplier contracts. "This is a lesson on how Äez noÄ You destroy enormous value and your reputation."

Earlier Monday, Shear wrote in a 530-word post on X that he plans to hire an independent investigator to review the details before and after Altman's firing. He pledged to gain insight from employees, partners and investors to shape how he would shape the company's management team. "I believe it will take longer than a month to make real progress.,” said Shear, the former CEO of live-streaming website Twitch. Later, Shear spoke with Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft.

During an appearance on Bloomberg Television on Monday, Nadella said his message to Shear was clear. "Hey, look, we're very, very committed to OpenAI and the company's mission and journey, and they can count on us,” said Nadella. "It was never my intention to harm OpenAI,” said Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI. In his post on Xu, he wrote: “I love everything we've built together and will do everything I can to bring the company back together.” Altman shared the message on his profile and added three red hearts.

Sutskever did not respond to a request for comment.

In addition to Altman, there are more #141 key employees of OpenAI joined the new AI branch of Microsoft. Among others, Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, who left the company in solidarity after Altman was ousted. Early Monday morning, Brockman said in a post on X that Altman and a trio of OpenAI researchers, Jakub Pachocki, Szymon Sidor, and Aleksander Madry, would be joining him at Microsoft.