Sam Altman is said to discuss the return to OpenAI with the company’s board

Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, two top executives at OpenAI who left the company on Friday after a dramatic board meeting, are again talking to board members about a return to the artificial intelligence start-up, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The discussions follow an outcry after 38-year-old Altman was removed from his role as CEO of OpenAI. Since then, OpenAI’s investors and Mr. Altman’s supporters have pressured the startup’s board members to bring Mr. Altman back, six people with knowledge of the situation said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the conversations are confidential.

Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in OpenAI, led the pressure campaign, one of the people said. OpenAI investors who have expressed support for Mr. Altman’s recovery were also willing to invest if he were to start a new company, something he started talking about almost immediately after being forced out, people with knowledge of the matter said situation.

There is no guarantee that Mr. Altman or Mr. Brockman will be reinstated at OpenAI, the people said. Because of OpenAI’s unique structure — it’s controlled by a nonprofit organization and its board has the power to direct the operations of the subsidiary, where the AI ​​work is done — the company’s investors have no official say in what happens happens with the start-up or who runs it.

OpenAI, Microsoft and Thrive Capital declined to comment. The edge previously reported that OpenAI’s board was in discussions with Mr. Altman about a possible return to the company.

The new discussions between Mr. Altman, Mr. Brockman and OpenAI’s board were the latest twist in a fast-moving drama at what is arguably the world’s leading AI company.

The San Francisco startup shot to fame last year when it released the chatbot ChatGPT and showcased the power of artificial intelligence. Mr. Altman, founder of OpenAI, quickly became the face of the AI ​​industry as Google, Meta and other giants rushed to take the lead in the technology. But on Friday, OpenAI abruptly announced that the board had fired Mr. Altman as CEO, saying “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board.” The board provided no explanation.

Mr. Altman was asked to join a video meeting with OpenAI’s board at noon on Friday and was immediately fired. Mr. Brockman said. Mr. Brockman said that even though he was chairman of the company’s board of directors, he was not part of the meeting. He later said he was leaving the company.

OpenAI had six board members before Mr. Altman was forced out and Mr. Brockman left. The other four are Ilya Sutskever, a founder of OpenAI; Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of Quora, the question-and-answer site; Helen Toner, director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology; and Tasha McCauley, an entrepreneur and computer scientist.

Before Mr. Altman’s ouster, tensions at OpenAI had been rising as the company’s profile soared. In particular, Mr. Sutskever, a respected AI researcher, had become increasingly concerned that OpenAI’s technology could be dangerous and that Mr. Altman was not paying enough attention to that risk, say three people familiar with his thinking . Mr Sutskever also took issue with what he saw as his diminished role within the company.

Mr. Altman’s resignation drew attention to a long-standing division in the AI ​​community between people who believe AI is the greatest business opportunity in a generation and others who worry that moving too quickly could be dangerous.

His departure also made waves in the technology industry, where Mr. Altman is known not only for OpenAI but also for his longtime leadership of Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley startup incubator. Many OpenAI investors — including Microsoft, Thrive Capital and Sequoia Capital — only learned of Mr. Altman’s departure a minute before his departure was announced or after news was made public.

On Friday evening, Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman were racing to set up a new AI company, three people familiar with the situation said. We also looked at which OpenAI employees would join them. At least three other OpenAI employees have resigned in the past two days.

Mr. Altman took a break from taking to social media to poke OpenAI’s board, with a joke that threatened to “go off,” or to speak candidly about the situation.

Tech investors also rushed to show their support for Mr. Altman and hinted they would back his next venture.

Alfred Lin, an investor at Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm that invested in OpenAI and Mr. Altman’s first startup, Loopt, posted on to build. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, said: “I can’t wait to see what he does next.”

While still leading OpenAI, Mr. Altman had pitched several ideas for new projects to investors and others in recent months. During a fundraising trip to the Middle East last month, Mr. Altman talked about AI-related projects, including a plan to develop custom AI chips that would compete with the chip company Nvidia.

Mr. Altman also spoke with Masayoshi Son, the CEO and billionaire founder of the technology conglomerate SoftBank, about investing in an effort to build an AI device with Jony Ive, the former Chief Design Officer at Apple.

But on Saturday afternoon, Mr Altman and Mr Brockman also spoke to the OpenAI about a return.

Karen Weise And Tripp Mickle reporting contributed.