Sam Altman is the co-founder and CEO of OpenAI. But did you know, he was once fired from his own company \u2013 OpenAI \u2013 on grounds he was \u201cnot consistently candid in his communications\u201d by the OpenAI board? It happened. In 2023. Altman was gone but only for a week. His ouster and comeback have long been shrouded in mystery but newly revealed text messages between Altman and former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati have now pulled back the curtain, leaving little to imagination about what happened and how it happened.<\/p>\n
Before we get into the details, a little context. Elon Musk has sued OpenAI for turning into a for-profit after starting off with the intent and focus of being \u2013 and remaining \u2013 a non-profit. Musk was one of 11 co-founders of OpenAI playing a key role in the origin of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. The case has now reached the trial stage and people involved \u2013 right from Musk himself to OpenAI president Greg Brockman \u2013 have taken the stand to testify. Mira Murati is also one of them. She was once OpenAI CTO and now the CEO of another AI company called Thinking Machines Lab.<\/p>\n
More notably, she briefly served as interim CEO of OpenAI after Altman\u2019s ouster. Text messages shared between Murati and Altman have made an appearance in the trial spilling the beans about OpenAI\u2019s time of turmoil.<\/p>\n
Why OpenAI removed Sam Altman as CEO<\/p>\n
On November 17, 2023, OpenAI\u2019s board suddenly announced in a blog post that Altman was being removed as chief executive because he had allegedly not been \u201cconsistently candid\u201d with directors.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Altman\u2019s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,\u201d the company said in its 2023 blog post.<\/p>\n
The board appointed Mira Murati as interim CEO, throwing the company into confusion almost instantly. Altman was desperately trying to understand whether there was still a path back to the company. In one text message sent early on November 20, he asked Mira: \u201ccan you indicate directionally good or bad? satya and others anxious.\u201d Murati\u2019s reply was blunt: \u201cDirectionally very bad. Sam this is very bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texts between Mira Murati and Sam Altman that have been made public as part of discovery in OpenAI-Elon Musk trial\n<\/p>\n
Mira Murati said Altman created chaos<\/p>\n
The exchanges also reveal a company split between loyalty to Altman and fears about his leadership style. During testimony, Murati said her concerns were largely management related. She described Altman as someone who would sometimes tell different things to different people and said his style often created \u201cchaos\u201d within the company. Yet even Murati later came to support Altman\u2019s return, arguing that OpenAI itself risked collapsing if the situation continued.<\/p>\n
The drama escalated quickly when Altman learned that the board did not even want him participating in discussions about his own future. In another exchange, Altman asked Murati what he could do to fix things, even suggesting he would walk away entirely if it helped OpenAI survive. Murati told him the board had become convinced he could no longer remain CEO.<\/p>\n
OpenAI was thinking to make Twitch streamer the new CEO<\/p>\n
At the same time, the board was already preparing a replacement. When Altman asked who they were planning to appoint, Murati responded with a now-famous line: \u201cNew guy is rando twitch guy,\u201d referring to former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear.<\/p>\n
Satya Nadella came at the rescue<\/p>\n
As OpenAI spiralled, Microsoft emerged as the company\u2019s lifeline and the messiah for Altman. Nadella, whose company had invested billions into OpenAI, became deeply involved in trying to stabilise the crisis. The texts show Murati repeatedly updating Altman about Nadella\u2019s efforts. At one point she wrote, \u201cSatya is being diplomatic,\u201d while also saying she was \u201cpulling Satya now\u201d to help manage the situation.<\/p>\n
Nadella\u2019s biggest move came when OpenAI\u2019s board appeared unwilling to reverse course. However, Microsoft publicly announced that Altman and former OpenAI president Greg Brockman would join Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. The offer immediately changed the balance of power.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success,\u201d Nadella wrote on X on November 20, 2023.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of OpenAI employees then threatened to quit and follow Altman to Microsoft, putting enormous pressure on the board.<\/p>\n
That pressure eventually forced OpenAI\u2019s directors into negotiations. But by the end of the week, Altman was back as OpenAI CEO, Murati had returned to her CTO role, and most of the board members responsible for his firing were gone.<\/p>\n
– Ends<\/p>\n
Published By: <\/p>\n
Divya Bhati<\/p>\n
Published On: <\/p>\n
May 8, 2026 19:38 IST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Altman is the co-founder and CEO of OpenAI. But did you know, he was once fired from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1798,12002,20753,13375,7492,157,20752,20755,20754,370,2806],"class_list":{"0":"post-32398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-openai","8":"tag-ai-governance","9":"tag-elon-musk-lawsuit","10":"tag-emmett-shear","11":"tag-microsoft-openai","12":"tag-mira-murati","13":"tag-openai","14":"tag-openai-board","15":"tag-openai-ceo-ouster","16":"tag-openai-employees-letter","17":"tag-sam-altman","18":"tag-satya-nadella"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}