- Sam Altman found out he was getting fired from OpenAI while he was in Las Vegas, per WSJ.
- He was at the Las Vegas Grand Prix when he got the news.
- Altman has since been hired by Microsoft, though talks between him and OpenAI’s board are ongoing.
OpenAI’s board told Sam Altman they were dumping him as CEO while he was attending the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
Altman took the fateful Google Meet call with the board in his hotel room in Las Vegas, per The Journal.
Altman’s firing as CEO was abruptly announced by OpenAI last Friday, midway through the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix that took place from November 16 to 18.
Representatives for OpenAI and Formula One Las Vegas did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
Altman has since been given the reins to Microsoft’s new advanced AI research team.
OpenAI, meanwhile, has since appointed former Twitch chief Emmett Shear as its new interim CEO, but the company is still dealing with the fallout from Altman’s ouster.
Nearly all of OpenAI’s staff threatened to quit unless the board resigned and Altman was reinstated as CEO.
And it seems OpenAI’s board could be experiencing buyer’s remorse with their decision to part ways with Altman.
Shear and OpenAI’s board are in “intense discussions” with Altman, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing an internal memo it had obtained.
One of the great, yet-unanswered questions in this dramatic moment in Silicon Valley history is about why Altman was fired in the first place.
In its statement on Altman’s departure, OpenAI’s board said he “was not consistently candid in his communications” with them. The board has not provided further details on the departure.
