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- It's still unclear why the former OpenAI board fired Sam Altman.
- In a recent interview, Altman repeatedly declined to elaborate on the circumstances of his ousting.
- The new board is conducting an independent review into the matter, and Altman is again CEO.
Sam Altman is back at the helm of OpenAI after the board failed to effectively oust him from the company — but he's staying mum about why he was fired in the first place.
His firing sent shockwaves through the tech industry, especially after the meteoric success of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Everyone is still wondering why exactly the board pushed him out, but Altman isn't ready to talk about it yet.
During an interview with The Verge on Wednesday, Altman declined multiple times to specify why he was fired.
In a previous post on X, he cited "real misunderstandings between me and members of the board," but didn't want to elaborate when asked about it.
Instead, Altman said he's "looking forward to learning more" from an independent review being conducted by the new board of OpenAI.
And if anyone is wondering why the old board said it lost trust in him, Altman says ask them.
"I don't feel ready to go talk about that yet. I think it's very important to let this review process run," Altman told The Verge.
He added: "I'm happy to talk about anything forward-looking. And I imagine there will be some time where I'm very happy to talk about what happened here, but not now."
The chaotic ordeal started with an announcement of Sam Altman being out as CEO and CTO Mira Murati assuming the role in an interim capacity.
At this point, Sam is back at OpenAI, Microsoft has a non-voting seat on the board, and the "new initial board" consists of Bret Taylor as chair, Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo, along with a non-voting board seat going to Microsoft.