Sources told the WSJ that some shareholders are questioning whether Sam Altman should remain at the helm of the company and are floating board chairman Bret Taylor as a potential replacement.
OpenAI's board is concerned about possible conflicts of interest on Altman's part, as well as his being spread too thin ahead of the company's planned public offering, which is preliminarily valued at $850 billion.
Altman has been pushing OpenAI investments into Helion, a nuclear fusion startup, Stoke Space, and Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface lab—all companies in which he has personal stakes. Meanwhile, OpenAI has publicly stated it's stepping back from side projects to stay focused on its core AI products.
On top of that, Altman said back in December that he has "zero percent" interest in being a CEO of a public company.
"Am I excited to be a public company CEO? 0%," he explained. "Am I excited for OpenAI to be a public company? In some ways, I am, and in some ways I think it'd be really annoying."
So, do you think Altman will step down as CEO?
❤️ — Yes, most likely
🤔 — Not sure
🔥 — Don't care, just drop GPT-6