OpenAI board fires CEO Sam Altman, hired Emmett Shear

OpenAI's board of directors abruptly fired CEO Sam Altman on Friday, leading co-founder Greg Brockman and dozens of other OpenAI staff to quit in protest. By Sunday evening, Emmett Shear was appointed the new interim CEO of OpenAI.

The timeline:

Altman was unexpectedly ousted on Friday, with the board originally citing “communication issues”. Altman confirmed the news in a tweet, with co-founder Greg Brockman resigning and posting a timeline of events detailing the blindside move from the OpenAI board.

More details emerged, indicating the firing was likely orchestrated by OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever — with reported increasing tensions over the speed of development.

OpenAI board fires CEO Sam Altman, hired Emmett Shear

On Saturday, news broke that OpenAI staff set an ultimatum for the board to resign and for Altman/Brockman to RETURN, or else they would quit and join Sam.

The deadline passed without official news, though Altman tweeted, “I love the OpenAI team so much” which was then quote-tweeted by hundreds of staff members with a “❤️” emoji on X.

Speculation was rampant, with many believing the moves were made in response to AGI being achieved — Altman did say a day before his firing that there had been a massive discovery in the last two weeks.

Altman posted a photo of himself at OpenAI HQ Sunday afternoon, with reports indicating that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was leading discussions.

In a shocking turn, the board rejected negotiations and hired Emmett Shear, former CEO of Twitch, as the new interim CEO of OpenAI.

Following the late Sunday night news, chaos ensued, and dozens of OpenAI staffers quit, with more likely to follow shortly.

In a final twist to the story, Satya announced that Sam and Greg will join Microsoft to create a new advanced AI research team.

Why it matters: This was a weekend straight out of Hollywood — with the entire drama unfolding in real time on X. The firing of Sam Altman and hiring to Microsoft will only push the competition further.

But what did the OpenAI board see that caused Sam’s seemingly instantaneous fire? How many OpenAI employees will follow Sam or join competitors like Google and xAI? Will OpenAI be able to weather the storm ahead through the leadership of Emmett Shear?