OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman makes stunning return to revamped board of directors after months of leadership turmoil where he was fired then rehired days later as ChatGPT maker vows to 'get stronger'

OpenAI is reinstating Sam Altman to its board and has 'full confidence' in his leadership, reversing all the turmoil of the past four months.

Altman was brought back after the conclusion of an outside investigation into the ChatGPT dramatic saga in November.

The company tapped the law firm WilmerHale to look into what led the company to abruptly fire Altman in November, only to rehire him days later. 

After months of investigation, it found that Altman's ouster was a 'consequence of a breakdown in the relationship and loss of trust' between him and the prior board, OpenAI said on Friday. It did not release the full report.

OpenAI is reinstating Sam Altman to its board and has 'full confidence' in his leadership, reversing all the turmoil of the past four months 

OpenAI also added three women to its board of directors: Sue Desmond-Hellman, a former head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Nicole Seligman, a former Sony general counsel; and Instacart chief executive Fidji Simo.

The San Francisco artificial intelligence company is attempting to show investors and customers that it is trying to move past the internal conflicts that nearly destroyed it last year and made global headlines.

'I'm pleased this whole thing is over,' Altman told reporters on Friday, adding he was disheartened to see 'people with an agenda' leaking information to try to harm the company or its mission and 'pit us against each other'.

Altman said he learned from the experience and apologized for a dispute with a former board member he could have handled 'with more grace and care'.

'The OpenAI team was so focused and resilient during this time,' he said. 'I learned a lot from this experience… I'm eager to move forward with the new board members.' 

'I am confident they will make significant contributions to the mission.' 

Sue Desmond-Hellman, a former head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, joined the OpenAI board

Nicole Seligman, a former Sony general counsel, was also added to the board

For more than three months, OpenAI said little about what led its then-board of directors to fire Altman on November 17. 

An announcement that day said Altman was 'not consistently candid in his communications' in a way that hindered the board's ability to exercise its responsibilities. 

He also was kicked off the board, along with its chairman, Greg Brockman, who responded by quitting his job as the company's president.

Much of OpenAI's conflicts have been rooted in its unusual governance structure.

Founded as a nonprofit with a mission to safely build futuristic AI that helps humanity, it is now a fast-growing big business still controlled by a nonprofit board bound to its original mission.

The investigation found the previous board acted within its discretion, but it also determined that Altman's 'conduct did not mandate removal,' OpenAI said. 

It said both Altman and Brockman remained the right leaders for the company.

'The review concluded there was a significant breakdown in trust between the prior board, and Sam and Greg,' Bret Taylor, the board's chair, said on Friday. 

'And similarly concluded that the board acted in good faith, that the board believed at the time that its actions would mitigate some of the challenges that it perceived and didn't anticipate some of the instability.

Instacart chief executive Fidji Simo was the third new appointment to the OpenAi board

'We have unanimously concluded that Sam and Greg are the right leaders for OpenAI. 

'I am excited to welcome Sue, Nicole, and Fidji to the OpenAI board of directors... We will get stronger and more stable with a strong board and strong governance.

'Their experience and leadership will enable the Board to oversee OpenAI's growth, and to ensure that we pursue OpenAI's mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.' 

Days after his surprise ouster, Altman and his supporters — with backing from most of OpenAI's workforce and close business partner Microsoft, which has since bought invested $13 billion in the company to take 49 per cent control — helped orchestrate a comeback.

Altman and Brockman were brought back to their executive roles and forced out board members Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner and another co-founder, Ilya Sutskever.

Sutskever kept his job as chief scientist and expressed regret for his role in ousting Altman.

'I think Ilya loves OpenAI,' Altman said on Friday, saying he hoped they would keep working together but declining to answer a question about Sutskever's current position at the company.

Ilya Sutskever led the failed board coup to out Altman, who returned days later following an employee and shareholder revolt, but kept his job

Altman and Brockman did not regain their board seats when they rejoined the company in November. 

But an 'initial' new board of three men was formed, led by Taylor, a former Salesforce and Facebook executive who also chaired Twitter's board before Elon Musk took over the platform. 

The others are former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Quora chief executive Adam D'Angelo, the only member of the previous board to stay on.

Both Quora and Taylor's new startup, Sierra, operate their own AI chatbots that rely in part on OpenAI technology.

After it retained the law firm in December, OpenAI said WilmerHale conducted dozens of interviews with the company's previous board, current executives, advisers and other witnesses. 

The company also said the law firm reviewed thousands of documents and other corporate actions.

Elon Musk last week filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for chasing profit by partnering with Microsoft for $13 billion and keeping the code for its newest generative AI products a secret

The board said it would make 'improvements' to the company's governance structure, adopt new corporate governance guidelines, and strengthen the company's policies around conflicts of interest.

OpenAI would also create a whistleblower hotline that would allow employees and contractors to submit anonymous reports and establish additional board committees.

The company still has other troubles to contend with, including a lawsuit filed by Musk, who helped bankroll the early years of OpenAI and was a co-chair of its board after its 2015 founding. 

Musk alleges that the company betrayed its founding mission in pursuit of profits.

Legal experts expressed doubt about whether Musk's arguments, centered around an alleged breach of contract, would hold up in court.

But it already forced open the company's internal conflicts about its unusual governance structure, how 'open' it should be about its research and how to pursue what's known as artificial general intelligence, or AI systems that can perform just as well as — or even better than — humans in a wide variety of tasks.

In November 2015 Elon Musk wrote that the company needed $100million to avoid 'sounding hopeless' 

In an email from December 2018 Musk told Altman and other executives the company needed to make 'billions per year' 

Federal regulators are also investigating whether OpenAI investors were misled in the course of Altman's shock ouster and quick return.  

The Securities and Exchange Commission sent a subpoena to the ChatGPT creator in December, and Altman's internal communications are being combed through. 

The SEC did not point to any specific statement or communication by Altman that it deemed misleading.

SEC officials in New York asked that some senior OpenAI executives preserve internal documents as they conduct the investigation.

Taylor OpenAI's 'mission-driven nonprofit' structure would't be changing as it continued to pursue its vision for artificial general intelligence that benefits 'all of humanity.'

'Our duties are to the mission, first and foremost, but the company — this amazing company that we're in right now — was created to serve that mission,' he said.