According to Reuters, investors fear losing hundreds of millions of dollars amid the scandal and are now exploring their options with lawyers.
49% of OpenAI’s share capital belongs to Microsoft, another 49% to other investors and 2% to the non-profit OpenAI Foundation, writes Reuters citing Semafor.
Unlike many other companies, OpenAI is not controlled by majority shareholders. The business is controlled by the board of directors of the NPO.
NPO boards have many obligations to the organizations they control. And, for example, this commitment to avoiding abuses gives them greater freedom of action when making decisions, say the experts interviewed by Reuters. They believe the investors have little chance of winning the case.
OpenAI accused Sam Altman of “not being consistently frank in his communications with the board of directors, which interfered with his ability to carry out his duties,” without specifying exactly what he was not being frank about.
Twitch co-founder Emmet Shear was named CEO in Altman’s place.
About 700 of OpenAI’s 770 employees have called on the company’s board of directors to resign and reinstate Altman, as well as the company’s co-founder and president, Greg Brockman, who resigned on Friday. Otherwise, OpenAI employees also threaten to leave the company and go to work at Microsoft, which has already hired the fired Altman.
He led Microsoft’s artificial intelligence research group. As he wrote on the social network X (formerly known as Twitter), his priority remains “ensuring OpenAI thrives.”
To that end, Microsoft has become a beneficiary of the turmoil at OpenAI, hiring ousted CEO Sam Altman and other key startup employees to prevent a potential defection to competitors.
The change of control at OpenAI on Friday raised concerns about the impact on Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and relies on its work for most of its artificial intelligence products.