Microsoft joins OpenAI board as a non-voting observer after CEO shakeup

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind the groundbreaking ChatGPT technology, has announced its new official board of directors after weeks of turmoil that shook the AI industry and sparked a near-mass exodus of employees.

The company has also announced that Microsoft, its close partner and major investor, will join the board as a non-voting observer, as part of a renewed collaboration between the two tech giants.

The new board consists of three members: Bret Taylor, the chair of the board and the president and chief operating officer of Salesforce; Larry Summers, a former U.S. Treasury Secretary and a professor at Harvard University; and Adam D’Angelo, the co-founder and CEO of Quora and the only remaining holdout from the previous board.

The announcement comes after a dramatic series of events that began on November 18, just days before the Thanksgiving holiday, when the previous board, composed of Altman, Brockman, D’Angelo and Toner, abruptly dismissed Altman as the CEO of OpenAI, citing a lack of candor and confidence in his leadership. 

Altman, who had co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and led its transformation from a nonprofit research lab into a world-renowned commercial startup, was shocked and saddened by the decision.

The next day, Microsoft, which had been a close partner of OpenAI and had invested billions of dollars in it, announced that it had hired Altman and Brockman, who had quit in protest, to lead its new advanced AI research team.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he was “extremely excited” to bring on the pair and looked “forward to getting to know” the new management team at OpenAI.

On Monday, November 20, more than 500 of OpenAI’s employees, including other top executives, threatened to quit unless they got Altman back and the current board resigned. They wrote an open letter to the board, accusing them of betraying the vision and values of OpenAI and jeopardizing the future of artificial intelligence. They also demanded an independent investigation into the circumstances of Altman’s firing and the board’s actions.

The new board faces a number of challenges and opportunities as they take over the helm of one of the most influential and innovative AI companies in the world. They will have to balance the competing demands of advancing the frontiers of AI research and development, while ensuring the safety, accountability and transparency of their products and processes.

They will also have to deal with the competition with other major AI players, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and IBM, as well as the regulatory and policy issues that affect the AI industry and society at large.

This story is developing…