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A Timeline Of Openai's Rocky 2024
OpenAI lost executives, achieved a historic valuation, and started the transition to a for-profit company in 2024.
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- OpenAI reached new funding and valuation heights in 2024.
- The ChatGPT maker also saw longtime employees depart and a legal fight with Elon Musk.
- Here are the biggest moments from OpenAI's roller-coaster year.
OpenAI cemented its place as the most valuable name in artificial intelligence in 2024 — and set itself up for more growth. The path wasn't entirely smooth.
After starting as a nonprofit almost a decade ago, OpenAI officially started moving toward converting to a for-profit company this year. It also wrapped up a historic funding round. All that came as CEO Sam Altman emerged with his role at the company intact after his temporary ouster last year.
But legal challenges remain for OpenAI, including court battles with Elon Musk, who co-founded the startup, as well as some of the nation's largest newspapers. The company also lost several high-profile employees, including some who were there at its start in 2015.
Here are the highlights of OpenAI's rocky year.
At the start of 2024, OpenAI was still reeling from the attempt to oust CEO Sam Altman.Sam Altman
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OpenAI's board of directors removed Altman as CEO in November 2023, saying it didn't have "confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."
A few days later, though, Altman was back as the startup's chief executive, and there was a new board, too. OpenAI employees reportedly refer to the period as "The Blip."
Details about the drama, such as exactly who had pushed for Altman's ouster, tricked out over the following weeks and months.
In December, Altman told Time that the ordeal was tough for him but that OpenAI emerged more unified than before. "I wouldn't wish it on an enemy. But it did have an extremely positive effect on the company," he said at the time.
Elon Musk's xAI raised billions to take on OpenAIElon Musk
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The Financial Times reported in January that xAI was seeking to raise as much as $6 billion at a valuation of $20 billion. Founder Elon Musk has framed the company as a challenger to OpenAI, which he co-founded with Altman. Musk left OpenAI's board in 2018.
OpenAI reached an $80 billion valuation in FebruaryOpenAI CEO Sam Altman
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A deal valued OpenAI at $80 billion, about triple its last valuation, The New York Times first reported in February. Company employees could cash out their shares as part of the tender offer.
Elon Musk sued Sam Altman and OpenAI in FebruaryTesla CEO Elon Musk (left) and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (right).
Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images; Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
Musk sued Altman and OpenAI in February, saying that the company "has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary" of Microsoft. That meant that OpenAI was now generating profit in violation of its nonprofit mission, Musk said in the lawsuit.
Altman and other OpenAI executives responded in a blog post in March. The post said that Musk himself had talked to the company about making OpenAI a for-profit entity, including potentially merging it with Tesla.
Musk withdrew his lawsuit in June, though the issue would resurface in the fall.
An SEC investigation into OpenAI came to light in FebruaryThe SEC logo
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
The SEC investigation was focused on whether OpenAI misled investors, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Unnamed sources told the Journal that the investigation was a response to the former OpenAI board's statement in November that Altman was not "consistently candid in his communications" before he was temporarily ousted from the company.
Sam Altman won a return to OpenAI's board in MarchSam Altman
Riddhi Kanetkar / Business Insider
OpenAI's board "unanimously concluded" that Altman and President Greg Brockman were "the right leaders for OpenAI," Chair Bret Taylor said in March.
Altman rejoined the board as three new members, all women, also took seats.
OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever announced in May that he was leaving OpenAIIlya Sutskever
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Sutskever, also chief scientist at OpenAI, was one of the group that attempted to push Altman out of the company in November. He later said that he regretted being part of the movement to oust Altman.
In a farewell post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Sutskever said he was confident that OpenAI would create artificial general intelligence that would be "both safe and beneficial."
OpenAI swiftly stopped using ChatGPT's "Sky" voice in May after claims it sounded like Scarlett JohanssonScarlett Johansson was not pleased by OpenAI's voice chat.
NBC
OpenAI pulled the voice from ChatGPT amid a public furor, adding that it wasn't an imitation of the movie star but belonged to another actor.
Some users had compared Sky to the voice of an automated assistant in the 2013 movie "Her," which Johansson voiced.
Johansson said that Altman had asked her to voice ChatGPT but that she declined. When OpenAI went ahead with a voice that sounded like hers, Johansson said she was "shocked" and hired legal representation.
OpenAI faced fresh criticism over safety as summer beganOpenAI just launched its AI video generator Sora to the public.
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In addition to the "Sky" voice incident, a New York Times report in early June added to OpenAI's image problems. It featured concerns from current and former OpenAI employees that the company wasn't doing enough to prevent its artificial intelligence from harming or destroying humanity.
An OpenAI spokesperson at the time reiterated to Business Insider the company's commitment to safety, highlighting an "anonymous integrity hotline" for employees to voice their concerns and the company's safety and security committee.
A Vox report also said that OpenAI pushed restrictive NDAs on departing employees and put their vested equity at risk if they didn't agree to them. The company told BI it would make " important updates to our departure process."
All of that created a public relations challenge for Altman.
Apple said it would integrate ChatGPT into its software in JuneChatGPT
NurPhoto/Getty
During its annual Worldwide Developer Conference in June, Apple said it would offer ChatGPT within its software, such as through Siri.
The partnership gives OpenAI potentially vast reach, with ChatGPT now within easier reach of millions of iPhone users.
Musk filed a new lawsuit against OpenAI in August; in November, he amended it to include Microsoft as a defendantSam Altman, left, speaks with Microsoft's Kevin Scott.
Microsoft
In August, Musk filed another lawsuit in which his lawyers argued that OpenAI executives "deceived" Musk into cofounding the company by playing on his concerns about the existential risks AI poses.
In November, Musk added Microsoft as well as one of its board members, Reid Hoffman, who also used to sit on OpenAI's board, as a defendant in the suit. It alleged that Microsoft was working with OpenAI to create a monopoly in the artificial intelligence world and extend "lavish compensation" to employees.
Musk also named Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member and mother of three of Musk's children, as a plaintiff.
In September, OpenAI announced that it would become a for-profit companyA ChatGPT search bar.
OpenAI
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in 2015, but the company said that it would change that status over the next two years.
The process will involve multiple steps, such as giving OpenAI's investors equity stakes in the new entity and earning government approvals, Business Insider previously reported.
The plan has drawn pushback, including from Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
CTO Mira Murati said in September that she would leave OpenAIMira Murati
Bloomberg/ Getty Images
Chief Technology Officer Murati said she was leaving OpenAI "to create the time and space to do my own exploration."
Murati reportedly played an important role in the attempted ousting of Altman from OpenAI. She served as CEO temporarily before Altman was reinstated.
President Gregg Brockman also said in August that he would take an extended leave of absence; he returned in November.
Other OpenAI executives and employees left the company throughout 2024Andrej Karpathy left OpenAI in 2017 to join Tesla but returned in 2023.
San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
Including Sutskever, at least nine notable OpenAI employees have left the company in 2024, Business Insider found. Among them were OpenAI co-founders Andrej Karpathy and John Schulman.
OpenAI raised a $6.6 billion funding round in October — the biggest in Silicon Valley's historyOpenAI CEO Sam Altman
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The funding round valued OpenAI at $157 billion, putting it on a similar footing with Uber and AT&T.
Thrive Capital led the round. Other major investors in OpenAI's round included SoftBank, Tiger Global, Microsoft, and Nvidia.
In November, xAI told investors it had raised $5 billion at a $50 billion valuation, The Journal reported.
In November, OpenAI allegedly deleted legal data in its legal fight with The New York Times and other newspapersThe New York Times' headquarters
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Lawyers for the newspapers were reviewing OpenAI's training data as part of the lawsuit.
In November, they learned that "OpenAI's engineers erased all of the News Plaintiffs' programs and search result data," according to a filing in the case. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment at the time.
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