Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Why everyone’s mad at Apple’s new iPad ad

A college professor wants to use Section 230 against Big Tech

Commerce Department revokes more export licenses to China’s Huawei

Dog hit by car loses leg, is adopted by firefighter who helped her

Postal worker finds WWII-era letters, drives 5 hours to deliver them

Strangers help Sesame Street puppeteer after heirloom necklace was stolen

Israel mulls options for Rafah after Biden threatens to withhold arms

Middle East conflict live updates: Israeli officials criticize Biden’s threat to halt weapons over Rafah

Protesters descend on Eurovision, object to Israel’s participation

In Photos: Russians mark 79th Victory Day with military parade

Think you want a dog? Take our quiz to find out if you’re ready.

White House: Gaza border crossings 'need to reopen'

Nationals finally run out of answers and fall to Orioles in 12 innings

The 30 best things to do in D.C. this weekend and next week

These Nationals are pretty fun. They would be more fun with James Wood.

In Arizona, election workers trained with deepfakes to prepare for 2024

How Trump’s allies amplify his Truth Social messages to the wider world

Indy Star bars columnist from Caitlin Clark’s games after awkward exchange

Carolyn Hax: Was it wrong to approach late wife’s pal for no-commitment sex?

Miss Manners: My roommate and I have opposite sleep schedules

Ask Sahaj: My husband wants me to forget all about his emotional affair

What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign

Judge keeps tying Trump to possible intimidation

Election 2024 latest news: Biden heading west on fundraising swing; Trump back in court

RFK Jr’s ‘history lesson’ on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine flunks the fact test

The Trump-Biden battle over the 2017 tax cut

That time football legend, rig-driving eligible bachelor Biden was arrested

Cruise worker accused of stabbing 3 with scissors arrested in Alaska

France tries to shed its rude reputation ahead of the Olympics

Don’t be a jerk at the airport: A guide for headphones

In the campaign against Donald Trump, do the ends justify the means?

The next global crisis could come from the sun. We should prepare now.

The FTC’s noncompete clause rule goes too far

Former U.S. President Donald Trump appears at court in New York

Big Tech news and how to take control of your data and devices

See more coverage in your recommendations

Technology

Tips delivered to your inbox twice weekly

The Tech Friend newsletter

Business and Tech alerts

SAN FRANCISCO — Sam Altman, who was fired on Friday from his role at ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, will return to his post as chief executive, ending a boardroom drama that has transfixed Silicon Valley and exposed the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/21/sam-altman-openai-ceo/" target=_blank>power struggles</a> over who has control over the future of artificial intelligence.

The company will have an initial board consisting of Bret Taylor, the former chair of Twitter’s board before its takeover by Elon Musk; Larry Summers, the Clinton-era U.S. treasury secretary; and Adam D’Angelo, the chief executive of Quora and one of the board members who voted to oust Altman.

“We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO,” OpenAI said in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this.”

Altman’s return puts a cap on nearly a week of chaos at San Francisco-based start-up at the center of the AI boom. His firing on Friday shocked many in the tech industry, including OpenAI’s investors and employees, who mounted a campaign to get him back. On Sunday, Altman went into the OpenAI offices for negotiations, with the aim of securing his return. Employees came in on the weekend to support him, staying for hours and ordering a spread of McDonald’s chicken nuggets and fries for sustenance as the evening wore on. But the initial talks broke down and the board announced a new interim CEO. Altman<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/20/emmett-shear-new-ceo-open-ai/" target=_blank> agreed to join Microsoft instead</a>.

That announcement spurred nearly all of the company’s roughly 770 employees to sign a letter in protest, threatening to quit if he was not reinstated. Both Altman and Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella signaled that they would still be open to him going back to OpenAI. On Tuesday, with the threat of the company’s chaos mounting, the board reached a new deal with Altman. OpenAI’s announcement came around 10 p.m. Pacific time. <a href="https://x.com/gdb/status/1727230819226583113?s=20" target=_blank>Jubilant employees</a> gathered in San Francisco’s Mission District to celebrate, toasting the return of their leader, according to a person familiar with the situation.

As part of the new deal, Altman will not have a seat on the board, and the board agreed to an independent investigation that will examine all aspects of recent events, including Altman’s role, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Altman was fired, with the board saying only that he had not been candid in his discussions with board members. On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported Altman had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/22/sam-altman-fired-y-combinator-paul-graham/" target=_blank>also been fired</a> from a previous job, as head of start-up incubator Y Combinator, four years ago.

Altman’s polarizing past hints at OpenAI board’s reason for firing him

The initial OpenAI board of three will vet and appoint a formal board of up to nine members, another person familiar with the matter said. Ilya Sutskever, Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, the three other board members who along with D’Angelo moved to oust Altman, will leave the board, the person said. Emmett Shear, who was named interim CEO, will also leave the company, said the person familiar with events around Altman’s return.

Greg Brockman, who quit in solidarity with Altman on Friday, said on X he is returning to the company.

The Senate holds an A.I. forum with industry leaders on September 13 in Washington, DC.

Altman, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab, was fired  as CEO on Friday. The A.I. start-up announced Tuesday that he will return to his post.

Taylor is a Big Tech veteran, having worked at Google, Facebook and most recently as Salesforce’s co-CEO, a post he held until early this year. He was board chair of Twitter during its acquisition by Elon Musk, and he led the legal battle to force Musk to go through with his acquisition of the social media platform.

An economist and former treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, Summers was president of Harvard University until stepping down in 2006 after making controversial comments the prior year suggesting women aren’t as good as men at science and engineering. He is well-connected in Silicon Valley and has been a special adviser to venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

MICROSOFTEVENT

Nadella offered to hire Altman as head of Microsoft’s new AI lab if he were to leave OpenAI. The Microsoft CEO struck a deal with OpenAI to invest billions in the company earlier this year.

Web Summit 2018 In Lisbon

Shear was named interim CEO of OpenAI to replace Altman and Mira Murati, who held the interim CEO title for just two days. Shear co-founded the video game streaming platform Twitch.

Vox Media's 2023 Code Conference - Day 2

Toner is one of the four members of OpenAI’s board who voted to oust Altman. An AI and national security researcher at Georgetown University, she has been a proponent of making sure the AI industry has proper safeguards. She stepped down from the board.

ISRAEL-SCIENCE-TECHNOLOGY-AI

A highly respected AI researcher, Sutskever is OpenAI’s chief scientist and was one of the board members who ousted Altman, a move he later said he regretted. He is no longer on the board.

President Biden Delivers Remarks On Artificial Intelligence

Brockman was one of Altman’s co-founders at OpenAI and has been one of his chief lieutenants. He quit in solidarity when Altman was fired. When Altman was reinstated as CEO, he posted on X he is returning to OpenAI.

The Microsoft chief technology officer is one of the most powerful executives in AI. He told OpenAI employees he would hire them all if they decided to quit the company over Altman’s ouster.

US-TECHNOLOGY-COMPUTERS-WSJ

Murati was an early OpenAI employee who was chief technology officer up until being appointed interim CEO after Altman’s firing. The board replaced her two days later with Shear. She has supported the efforts to get Altman back to the company.

The veteran venture capitalist and founder of Khosla Ventures is an early investor in OpenAI. He has vocally opposed Altman’s ouster.

Kairos Global Summit 2014

The former OpenAI board member and tech entrepreneur also sits on the board of the Center for the Governance of AI, a British think tank that researches the impact of artificial intelligence. 

CEO's And Corporate Executives Gather For Annual Allan And Co Gathering In Sun Valley

D’Angelo is on OpenAI’s board and voted to oust Altman. He was Facebook’s chief technology officer in the company’s early years and went on to found Quora, the question-and-answer site.

A spokesperson for OpenAI declined to comment further.

“I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together,” Altman said on X. “When I decided to join [Microsoft] on sun evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team. With the new board and [with] Satya’s support, I’m looking forward to returning to OpenAI, and building on our strong partnership with [Microsoft].”

OpenAI shot into the mainstream after <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/05/chatgpt-hidden-cost-gpu-compute/" target=_blank>releasing ChatGPT</a>, a viral AI chatbot that responds to questions with complex, humanlike responses. The technology has driven a boom in advanced generative AI — illustrating how the technology, which ingests troves of data to create text, images and audio, could transform industries and impact modern life. The software helped propel the company into the center of the AI industry, leapfrogging tech titans such as Google and Meta, which have been working on similar technology.

The drama around Altman’s sudden ouster at OpenAI has exposed the deep rift inside the company over who should control its future. OpenAI started in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab, but in recent years under Altman’s leadership, it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/30/anthropic-amazon-artificial-intelligence/" target=_blank>took on billions of dollars in investment</a> from the likes of tech giant Microsoft and venture capitalists, and began developing consumer products. Outside critics and some employees worried the company had abandoned its mission and was behaving more like a Big Tech company when it was originally meant to provide a more transparent, democratic alternative to the tech giants.

The question of who will ultimately control OpenAI and its technology now falls to the three board members. It’s unclear whether OpenAI’s overall structure and official mission of creating humanlike machine intelligence to benefit all of humanity will be changed as well. Still, a larger board and the presence of Taylor and Summers suggest the future makeup will be more like a traditional tech company, with high-powered, veteran business leaders from different companies, rather than the previous board, which featured Toner and McCauley, who are experts in how AI may impact society, but haven’t led giant moneymaking corporations.

Summers has been vocal about artificial intelligence, warning that it is likely to lead to major disruption in the job market much earlier than many forecasters anticipate. He serves on the board of Block, the payments firm started by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, as well as the software company Skillsoft Corp, which put him in contact with numerous Silicon Valley investors. Sheryl Sandberg, the former chief operating officer of Facebook, began her career working with Summers at the World Bank and in the Clinton administration. A spokeswoman for Summers did not immediately return a request for comment on how he joined the OpenAI board.

On Wednesday, the Revolving Door Project, a left-leaning watchdog group that tracks government appointments and their corporate ties, blasted OpenAI’s decision to add Summers to its board, criticizing his <a href="https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/larry-summers-and-the-crypto-con/" target=_blank>record</a> of “energetically” embracing the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/21/cryptocurrency-exchange-binance-justice-department-settlement-sec/535fe218-8893-11ee-a36e-fdb7be9bd43d_story.html" target=_blank>embattled cryptocurrency industry</a>.

“There is no greater indication that OpenAI is unserious about the interests of humanity than their elevation of Larry Summers to its Board of Directors,” Jeff Hauser, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. Hauser said Summers’s “ascent to the heights of AI should accelerate concerns that AI will be bad for all but the richest and most opportunistic amongst us.”

Taylor, the other new board member, is no stranger to high-stakes corporate wrangling. Taylor led a successful legal battle to force Musk to go through with the deal to acquire Twitter, a move that was very profitable for Twitter investors, but was criticized by its employees who did not want to work for Musk, and fans of the service who thought the billionaire would destroy it.

Regardless of the final board composition, Altman’s return will be greeted with relief by investors, customers and employees, who feared the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/sam-altman-and-the-chaos-at-openai/" target=_blank>boardroom drama</a> could lead to the company’s implosion. If that had happened, it would have left a vacuum at the center of the AI industry, opening the window for competitors like Google and AI start-up Anthropic to gain momentum.

Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s biggest investor and uses its technology in its own AI products, also stands to benefit from a stabilized OpenAI and the return of Altman.

“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance,” Nadella said in a statement on X. “We look forward to building on our strong partnership and delivering the value of this next generation of AI to our customers and partners.”

Alice Crites, Jeff Stein and Cristiano Lima contributed to this report.

University of Delaware, BS in finance

Columbia University, MS in journalism

Pranshu Verma is a reporter on The Washington Post's technology team. Before joining The Post in 2022, he covered technology at the Boston Globe. Before that, he was a reporting fellow at the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Pranshu Verma

Columbia University, BA in English

New York University, MA in Journalism

Longform

Nitasha Tiku is The Washington Post's tech culture reporter based in San Francisco.


Nitasha Tiku

Carleton University, BA in Journalism and Global Politics

Gerrit De Vynck is a tech reporter for The Washington Post. He writes about Google, artificial intelligence and the algorithms that increasingly shape society. He previously covered tech for seven years at Bloomberg News.

Gerrit De Vynck

washpost

Sam Altman is back as OpenAI’s CEO

the-washington-post

Help Desk

Artificial Intelligence

Internet Culture

Space

Tech Policy

Tech

prism://prism.query/two-sites,/technology,/politics/powerpost/the-technology-202?limit=20