Hundreds of OpenAI staff members have threatened to quit en masse if the board overseeing the ChatGPT developer does not reinstate its ousted chief executive Sam Altman and then step down. In an open letter, 550 of OpenAI's 700 employees demanded the resignation of the board and said they might walk out if Altman is not brought back. Altman was fired on Friday in a move that shocked Silicon Valley and angered most of the company's employees. The letter to OpenAI's four remaining board directors says: "Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI. We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment and care for our mission and employees."

The OpenAI chaos took another twist on Monday morning as most of the company's staff threatened to quit unless the board resigns and reinstates former CEO Sam Altman and ex-president Greg Brockman. According to Wired and Kara Swisher, around 500 employees -- including several executives -- signed the letter. Swisher noted that OpenAI has 700 employees. Several of them, including Chief Technical Officer Mira Murati (who held the company's top job on an interim basis for less than a weekend), wrote on X early Monday that "OpenAI is nothing without its people." Breaking: 505 of 700 employees @OpenAI tell the board to resign.

The new interim CEO of OpenAI suggested earlier this year that artificial intelligence holds a level of potential risk for humankind that "should cause you to s**t your pants." Emmett Shear, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitch, was appointed over the weekend to lead OpenAI after its board of directors ousted its longtime CEO Sam Altman in a shock firing on Friday. In a June interview on "The Logan Bartlett Show" podcast, Shear said he feared that AI technology could evolve until it is smart enough to design artificial intelligence on its own, "fully self-improve itself" and outsmart humans. "That kind of intelligence is just an intrinsically very dangerous thing," he said. Human beings are the dominant form of life on this planet, pretty much entirely because we're smarter than the other creatures now."

OpenAI was in open revolt on Monday with more than 500 employees signing an open letter threatening to leave unless the board resigns and reinstates Sam Altman as CEO, along with cofounder and former president Greg Brockman. Altman was controversially fired by the board on Friday. "The process through which you terminated Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board has jeopardized all of this work and undermined our mission and company" the letter reads. "Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI." Remarkably, the letter's signees include Ilya Sutskever, the company's chief scientist and a member of its board, who has been blamed for coordinating the boardroom coup against Altman in the first place.

Just after 2am Pacific Time on Monday morning, several OpenAI staffers, including its chief technology officer Mira Murati, posted in unison on X "OpenAI is nothing without its people." Sam Altman, who was dramatically removed as the company's chief executive on Friday, reposted many of them. By then, Altman already had a new job. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, a major investor and partner of OpenAI, announced late on Sunday night that Altman and his cofounder Greg Brockman would be joining the tech giant to head a new "advanced AI research team." Nadella's statement seemed to suggest that others from the startup would be joining Microsoft.

OpenAI's board of directors announced Friday it had fired CEO Sam Altman. By Monday morning, he had joined Microsoft "to lead a new advanced AI research team," according to the company. Altman cofounded OpenAI with Elon Musk in 2015 as a nonprofit and served as the CEO for the for-profit arm since 2019. He was originally fired from OpenAI over "a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board," according to an internal staff memo. Several key members also resigned, including co-founder Greg Brockman (who will now also join Microsoft) along with a few senior researchers.

On 17 November, OpenAI's board of directors unexpectedly fired the company's CEO Sam Altman. The board cryptically announced that Altman "was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities". This led to a wave of rumours about the reason for the decision. Within hours, Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, was also removed from the board and three senior researchers – Jakub Pachocki, Aleksander Madry and Szymon Sidor – also quit. Brockman later resigned from the company.

There is a lot riding on the earnings report this week from Nvidia, both for the company's ebullient investors and the entire stock market. Nvidia has been the big winner of the bet that artificial intelligence is the next big thing in tech, the so-called AI trade that surged in popularity after OpenAI's release of its ChatGPT app. The chip maker's shares have more than tripled this year, contributing to a sizable portion of the S&P 500's 18% rise.

Microsoft Corp. said that Sam Altman will lead the software developer's new in-house artificial intelligence team after the OpenAI co-founder was ousted from his startup last week, a bid to shore up Microsoft's AI plans and reassure investors. Greg Brockman, an OpenAI board member and co-founder who also left the company last week, will join Altman and Microsoft will "move quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success," the Redmond, Washington-based company's Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said in a post on LinkedIn early on Monday. In another post on X, formerly Twitter, Nadella said Altman will serve as CEO of the new in-house group. I'm super excited to have you join as CEO of this new group, Sam, setting a new pace for innovation. We've learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios,… The move, at midnight local time on Sunday, was the latest in a dramatic three days for Microsoft and OpenAI's relationship, a backup plan for Nadella after his efforts to restore Altman and Brockman to OpenAI were thwarted. The OpenAI board named former Twitch chief Emmett Shear as CEO.

In another twist on the OpenAI saga that raged over the weekend, Microsoft has swooped in and hired Sam Altman and Greg Brockman just after OpenAI confirmed Altman won't be returning, CEO Satya Nadella announced in a post on X. The pair, along with colleagues are joining Microsoft "to lead a new advanced AI research team." Nadella added that Microsoft "remain[s] committed to our partnership with OpenAI," but the move looks a giant hedge on that bet. It also means the much of OpenAI's talent may be moving to Microsoft, which may stall progress on the widely-used ChatGPT product. We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners.