Sam Altman to Return to OpenAI’s Board of Directors

OpenAI said on Friday that Sam Altman, its high-profile chief executive, would rejoin its board of directors, more than three months after he was briefly pushed out of the company.

The move comes ahead of a highly anticipated report by a law firm hired by OpenAI’s board of directors to investigate Mr. Altman and his sudden removal from the company in November.

In reinstating Mr. Altman to its board, the nonprofit’s independent board members expressed confidence in him and signaled that the coming report could remove concerns about his leadership style.

Mr. Altman returned as chief executive just five days after being pushed out and agreed to an investigation of his behavior and the board’s actions. Two members who voted for his ouster agreed to step down; their replacements, from outside the company, oversaw the investigation by the law firm, WilmerHale.

OpenAI also moved to address concerns about a lack of diversity on the board by adding three women as directors: Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the former chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Nicole Seligman, the former general counsel of Sony; and Fidji Simo, the chief executive of Instacart.

(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December for copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems.)

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.