'Still don't want me?' — trial reveals Sam Altman's frantic texts after 2023 OpenAI ouster

Murati and Altman's begin texting at 5:43 p.m., Pacific Time, on November 19, 2023. Altman — apparently locked out of OpenAI's offices — asks Murati to "officially invite me to the office for a meeting." "I'm about to speak with them," she tells Altman, referring to the board that fired him. Some seven hours later — it's now after 2 a.m. on November 20 — Altman asks for an update on her call with board members. "Can you indicate directionally good or bad?" he asks, noting that "Satya" — Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, which had a big investment in OpenAI, is "concerned." "Directionally very bad," Murati said. "What do you want to make it better? I'm still willing to walk away if that helps," Altman tells Murati as the text exchange continues. He worries in the exchange that the board may be "ramped up for crazy lawsuits against me," and pleads again to be heard by the board. "They're convinced about their decision," she tells him. "For me to be fired? or some new thing?" he asks. She tells him, "Yes for you to be gone." "Ok," Altman says, still desperate to speak to the board. "Then can i come in and talk about a path forward with them?" "They're saying no and they need more time," Murati says. When Altman asks "more time for what?" she breaks the news to him that he — and she — are being replaced. "They want a new ceo in place," Murati tells him. Murati tells Altman that she hopes Nadella "can help undo this," meaning his ouster. But she's not optimistic, even if Altman is successful in rallying the staff and cofounders to his side. "They don't care if everyone quits," she tells Altman. He, meanwhile, worries that the board wants to cut a deal transferring OpenAI's intellectual property to Anthropic. "Is that what they want is the IP going to anthropic?" Altman asks. Murati, at the time, had been highly critical of Altman's leadership. At the Musk v Altman trial on Wednesday, jurors heard video testimony in which she said he created "chaos" by pitting executives against each other and telling people what they wanted to hear. She said she helped him get his job back to "stabilize" the company amid objections to the board's handling of his ouster. "The company was pretty much imploding," she explained in her testimony. The exchange ends with Altman broaching a plan that, within hours, would get him reinstalled as CEO of OpenAI: get "everyone" to sign a petition threatening to quit. "I'm on board," Murati tells Altman. "I think it's best shot to get company back and keep people," Altman tells her. "I think you all just need to get a petition of everyone saying they will quit and join" Microsoft. "lmk if you have a minute for a call?" he asks Murati, and the text exchange ends. Later that day, some 600 employees — some 95 percent of OpenAI's staff — signed a letter threatening to quit en masse to work for Microsoft. It successfully demanded that Altman be reinstated as CEO and that the board that fired him resign.