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The future of OpenAI remained uncertain on Tuesday after extraordinary efforts by employees and investors to oust the board had so far failed to persuade its directors to resign and reinstate co-founder Sam Altman.
People with direct knowledge of the matter said that by the end of Monday, 747 out of 770 OpenAI employees had signed a letter threatening to quit and join Microsoft if the board refused to resign and reverse their decision on Friday to sack Altman.
Venture capitalists backing the generative artificial intelligence start-up were also exploring legal measures to force the board to reverse course, according to multiple people with knowledge of their thinking.
One person at a venture fund with a stake in OpenAI said “legal action could come as soon as tomorrow,” without specifying what form that would take.
But according to a person with direct knowledge of the negotiations, as of Monday night the board remained resolute and was prepared to test employees’ willingness to quit.
In their letter, staff said the directors had “undermined our mission and company” in the way they fired Altman and stripped his co-founder Greg Brockman of his position on the board. Brockman subsequently quit the company.
Ilya Sutskever, the last remaining co-founder on the board and OpenAI’s chief scientist, signed the letter from staff after apologizing on social media for his role in firing Altman. He did not however say whether he would himself quit the board.
Sutskever had come under increasing pressure from staff to flip his position on Altman’s ousting over the weekend, according to people familiar with the situation.
The removal of Altman has plunged Silicon Valley’s most feted start-up into a historic crisis. OpenAI has been at the forefront of a boom in artificial intelligence, widely regarded as the most significant technological breakthrough since the smartphone.
The uncertainty over OpenAI’s future has also created an opportunity for rival AI companies caught out by the release of its hugely popular ChatGPT chatbot last year.
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