CEO Offered Top Job and Merger Proposal by OpenAI’s Board

Anthropic, an AI startup led by former OpenAI executives, has declined a proposal from OpenAI’s board of directors to replace Sam Altman as CEO and merge the two companies. This news was reported by The Information on Monday. According to REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration, Anthropic’s logo is visible in an illustration dated March 31, 2023.

OpenAI has also taken on ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear as interim CEO after its board offered him the position following Sam Altman’s departure. Meanwhile, Microsoft has hired several key personnel from OpenAI. However, this move has caused unrest in OpenAI with nearly all of its employees threatening to quit and one board member resigning already.

Anthropic co-founders left OpenAI in 2020 due to disagreements over safe development and governance of AI. Since then, the company has secured investments from Google and Amazon and gained prominence alongside OpenAI’s GPT series with its Claude AI models.

Jeffrey Dastin is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco who focuses on technology and artificial intelligence. He previously wrote about airlines and travel from the New York bureau and holds a degree in history from Yale University. He was part of a team that examined Amazon’s global lobbying efforts, earning them a SOPA Award in 2022.