In an open letter Monday morning, 505 of 770 OpenAI employees of the embattled company served notice to its board, threatening to resign en masse and join Microsoft.
In the wake of an unprecedented weekend that began with Friday’s sudden ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman by the board and the resignation of President Greg Brockman, frantic but fruitless negotiations followed into late Sunday, ending with the board’s naming of former Twitch boss Emmett Shear as CEO.
In response, by early morning, some 72% of OpenAI employees called out the board’s actions in a letter, saying in part that “despite many requests for specific facts for your allegations, you have never provided any written evidence.”
“Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI,” the final section of the letter begins, written in bold type.
The letter closes by saying, “We, the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Microsoft has assured us there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join.”
500 of 770 employees of OpenAI are heading out https://t.co/wWXdmxBpmJ
— Ashlee Vance (@ashleevance) November 20, 2023
OpenAI board member Ilya Sutskever has signed the letter demanding the board resign. Earlier Monday morning, he took to X, denouncing his own participation in the removal of Altman and Brockman.
“I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions,” wrote Sutskever on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”
By 8:12 a.m., OpenAI staffer Lilian Weng posted to social media that “about 650 / 770” had signed the open letter, with the first 500 signing within two hours.
About 650 / 770 signed at this moment. As people start waking up, more will come. All the efforts started after 1:30 AM, 500+ within two hours and all of this after 2 crazy days with very little sleep.
— Lilian Weng (@lilianweng) November 20, 2023
By 9:39 a.m., The Information’s Amir Efrati said almost 700 employees had signed the open letter.
❗️Almost 700 of 770 OpenAI employees including Sutskever have signed letter demanding Sam and Greg back and reconstituted board with Sam allies on it.
— Amir Efrati (@amir) November 20, 2023
That’s…powerful.
Just before 11 a.m., The Verge reported Altman is still trying to get back into OpenAI as his new job at Microsoft “isn’t a done deal.”
By noon, the number of employees had reached 715, according to one OpenAI engineer’s tweet calling the level of support “shocking.”
Now 715. I should note that this includes colleagues with tenuous visa situations, a colleague who was literally in the hospital with the birth of their first child, signatories in the air on their way to Thanksgiving break, and many others. The support here was shocking https://t.co/gmR0PVg7Wt
— Evan Morikawa (@E0M) November 20, 2023
As of 1:30 p.m., a tweet from the company’s head of sales said the number had risen to 735 or, by another employee’s count, over 95% of employees.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.