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Majority of OpenAI employees threaten to quit and join Microsoft if board don’t resign

Majority of OpenAI employees threaten to quit and join Microsoft if board don't resign

More than 500 employees of revolutionary artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI have said they will leave if the ousted CEO Sam Altman is not reinstated and the board does not resign.

A letter from 505 of the approximately 700 OpenAI employees threatened to quit and jump ship to Microsoft, having received assurances that there are jobs for them at the tech giant.

Key members of management are signatories of the letter, including the former interim CEO Mira Murati, who was replaced this morning, and the chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.

Mr Altman was fired by the not-for-profit company’s board on Friday as they said he “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board”.

“Despite many requests for specific facts for your allegations, you have never provided any evidence,” the letter from employees to the board read.

On Monday morning, Mr Altman and company president Greg Brockman were hired by Microsoft to work on a new AI project.

OpenAI is the company behind the game-changing generative AI chatbot used by millions, ChatGPT.