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- OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever expressed remorse for being involved in ousting Sam Altman.
- He said in an X post that he deeply regretted his participation in removing his fellow cofounder.
- The chief scientist signed an open letter calling for the board to resign.
OpenAI cofounder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has expressed his "deep regret" in being part of the decision to oust Sam Altman.
"I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI," Sutskever said in an X post Monday. "I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company."
Soon after the chief scientist's statement, Altman responded to his post with three heart emojis, seemingly signaling that there's no love lost between the pair.
The remorseful statement comes after OpenAI pushed Altman out as CEO on Friday afternoon and a weekend of failed talks to bring him back into the company.
The board pushed Altman out and declared Friday that it "no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."
The blunt statement also said the former CEO "was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities."
In a rollercoaster series of events over the weekend, Altman was being considered to return to the top position. He gave the board a deadline of 5 p.m. PT Saturday to resign if he was to come back, The Verge reported. But the deadline was reportedly later extended to 5 p.m. PT Sunday after the board failed to resign and an agreement wasn't reached.
Less than 24 hours after Altman shared a photo of himself from OpenAI's office wearing a guest badge, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that he's joining the company. Former OpenAI president Greg Brockman will also be coming on board to help lead Microsoft's "new advanced AI research team."
Sutskever is one of 490 OpenAI employees who signed an open letter calling for Altman to be reinstated, Wired reported.
The letter shared Monday shows that the employees threatened to quit unless the board resigned. It said that the board had "jeopardized" and "undermined" the company's mission.
"Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI," the letter said, per Wired.
It continued: "The leadership team suggested that the most stabilizing path forward - the one that would best serve our mission, company, stakeholders, employees and the public — would be for you to resign and put in place a qualified board that could lead the company forward in stability."
OpenAI didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.