Sam Altman was raising a VC fund when OpenAI fired him

Sam Altman was in the middle of raising money for a new venture capital fund focusing on hard tech when he stepped down as CEO of OpenAI, according to a person familiar with the matter.

He was also in good spirits in recent days and attended an industry gathering on Wednesday evening, other people familiar with the matter said, indicating that he had no inkling that he would be pushed out of the firm he helped found.

In a blog post on Friday, OpenAI said its board of directors lost confidence in Altman’s leadership abilities after a “deliberative review process,” which “concluded that Altman was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”

Altman’s business dealings have long been a subject of intrigue in Silicon Valley. In group chats and private conversations, founders and operators have questioned his network of investments and whether there were financial connections that weren’t publicly known.

It’s unclear whether these investments had anything to do with his ouster from OpenAI. An OpenAI spokeswoman declined to comment.

In a post on X, Altman said, “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.”

Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer who joined the company in 2018, will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately. OpenAI’s board said she was “uniquely qualified” for the role given her “experience in AI governance and policy.” The company is planning to begin a formal search for a permanent CEO soon.

Greg Brockman, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, said Friday afternoon that he had decided to quit the company entirely after initially stepping down from his position as chairman of the board.

“i’m super proud of what we’ve all built together since starting in my apartment 8 years ago. we’ve been through tough & great times together, accomplishing so much despite all the reasons it should have been impossible,” Brockman wrote in a letter to employees shared on X. ”but based on today’s news, i quit.”

The remainder of the board includes OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, technology entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner, director of strategy at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. CSET has become a prominent think tank working on issues related to AI in Washington, DC in recent years.

Altman, unusually, didn’t have equity in OpenAI — much less the kind of control that founders like Mark Zuckerberg have — and so could be fired at any time, Semafor previously reported.