Khaberni - Sam Altman's brief dismissal from his position as CEO of the artificial intelligence company "OpenAI" in November 2023 was a major shock.
Company board members, including his old partner and co-founder Ilya Sutskever, claimed Altman "was not always forthright in his communications with the board," undermining their trust in him. Nevertheless, Altman was reinstated within a week after hundreds of employees threatened to resign.
Now, new details about this dismissal have emerged from Ilya Sutskever's testimony in the ongoing lawsuit filed by Elon Musk against Altman and "OpenAI," according to several reports.
During nearly 10 hours of interrogation, Sutskever testified that he witnessed Altman manipulating senior executives and presenting them with conflicting information about his plans for the company.
He said Altman would tell people what they wanted to hear, creating an impression of him as a manipulative and unstable leader in his relentless pursuit of his own agenda.
Sutskever, who co-founded "OpenAI" with Altman and others after leaving Google in 2015, became known to be dissatisfied with Altman by 2023.
He disclosed that one or all of the three independent board members of "OpenAI" at the time asked him to compile a series of screenshots and other documents concerning executive concerns about Altman.
Sutskever complied and submitted a 52-page memo to board members Adam D'Angelo, Helen Toner, and Tasha McCauley.
Sutskever said he had been waiting to propose Altman's dismissal "for at least a year" before it actually happened. He sent a separate memo detailing his concerns about "OpenAI" president, Greg Brockman.
The memos were sent as disappearing emails, but "a number of lawyers" have copies of them, according to the testimony.
The main issue for Sutskever was that Altman "showed a consistent pattern of lying, undermining his executives, and fostering competition among them."
Sutskever claimed that Altman told him and Yakub Pachucki, currently the chief scientist at "OpenAI," "conflicting things about how to manage the company," leading to a conflict between them.
Sutskever criticized Altman for not taking a firm stance when Dario Amodei, the former research director at "OpenAI," wanted to manage "all OpenAI research" and fire Brockman.
This suggests that Altman was playing both sides to see which would prevail in his favor.
Sutskever alleged that Mira Murati, the former technical director at "OpenAI," accused Altman of trying to pit her and Daniela Amodei, who was then the executive director of research at "OpenAI," against each other.
He said that Murati provided him with screenshots and various documents of conversations, including a text conversation between Altman and Brockman. Murati pointed to allegations that Altman left his leadership post at "Y Combinator" due to "similar behavior."
In response to Sutskever's testimony, a spokesperson for "OpenAI" said: "The events of 2023 are in the past."
They added: "These claims were thoroughly examined during the independent review conducted by the board, which unanimously concluded that Sam and Greg are the right leaders for OpenAI."
These statements reflect a comment made in 2024 by the board chairman, Bret Taylor, after an investigation by the company.
