Sam Altman makes his first statement after getting fired from OpenAI

Sam Altman, got suddenly fired by OpenAI’s board on Friday as CEO, has made his first statement on X less than two hours after the announcement was made. Though he gave no details on what happened, he said he’ll “have more to say about what’s next later.”

On X, formerly known as Twitter, Altman posted, “i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people. will have more to say about what’s next later.”

It’s unclear what Altman meant by “more to say” or exactly when “later” is, but the enigmatic statement suggests he’ll be sharing his side of the story.

Altman’s post comes after OpenAI’s board of directors announced his firing due to not being “consistently candid” with the board. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,” the announcement said.

Speculation as to why he was abruptly fired are already running rampant. It comes as a surprise to most people since Altman was publicly representing the company up until yesterday, as veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher pointed out.

Last week, OpenAI held its very first developer conference where Altman delivered the keynote. OpenAI had some big announcements to share that included the launch of GPT-4 Turbo and custom GPTs.

However, just a few days later, a DDoS attack caused a major ChatGPT outage. Altman initially blamed it on increased demand from the deployment of new features.

It’s been a tumultuous few weeks for OpenAI and Altman’s sudden ousting adds the confusion.