OpenAI dismissed Altman on Friday after a "breakdown of communications," according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
OpenAI's staff has threatened to quit the artificial intelligence startup and join former boss Sam Altman at Microsoft's (MSFT.O) new division unless the board resigns, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
Apart from Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, Chief Data Scientist Ilya Sutskever and Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap, about 500 members of OpenAI staff said they would resign, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
For the uninitiated, days after being fired by OpenAI as CEO, Sam Altman is now set to lead a new advanced AI research team at Microsoft. In a tweet, Nadella announced on Monday that Altman, along with another OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and former OpenAI employees will be joining Microsoft.
"We’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success," the Microsoft CEO tweeted.
In the same tweet, he said, "We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners. We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI's new leadership team and working with them."
The startup dismissed Altman on Friday after a "breakdown of communications," according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
The organization that governs OpenAI is a nonprofit. Its four-person board as of Friday consisted of three independent directors holding no equity in OpenAI, as well as Chief Scientist Sutskever.
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