Vinod Khosla expresses support for Sam Altman's potential return to OpenAI

Indian-American billionaire and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla on Sunday (November 19) unequivocally expressed Khosla Ventures' desire for Sam Altman to return to his former position at OpenAI.

In another X post, Khosla went on to praise Altman as a "once in a generation CEO" and commended his positive impact on the world. Calling Altman an instigator, Khosla expressed honor in working alongside him, regardless of his location.

Khosla Ventures was the pioneering venture capitalist to invest in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, during the company's transition from a nonprofit to a private enterprise in 2019.

Presently, Khosla Ventures stands as one of the primary investors in OpenAI, joining forces with Microsoft and the Reid Hoffman Foundation as the three principal backers.

This comes after Open AI announced the dismissal of its CEO and co-founder Altman on Friday and appointed Mira Murati as the interim chief executive officer of the company. "The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI," the artificial intelligence company said in a statement.

In the year since Altman catapulted ChatGPT to global fame, he has become Silicon Valley’s sought-after voice on the promise and potential dangers of artificial intelligence, and his sudden and mostly unexplained exit brought uncertainty to the industry’s future.

Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, will take over as interim CEO effective immediately, the company said, while it searches for a permanent replacement.

The announcement also said another OpenAI co-founder and top executive, Greg Brockman, the board’s chairman, would step down from that role but remain at the company, where he serves as president. But later on X, formerly Twitter, Brockman posted a message he sent to OpenAI employees in which he wrote, "Based on today’s news, I quit."

In another X post on Friday night, Brockman said Altman was asked to join a video meeting at noon Friday with the company’s board members, minus Brockman, during which OpenAI co-founder and Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever informed Altman he was being fired.