OpenAI cofounder and chief scientist says he deeply regrets participating in ousting Sam Altman

• The OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever expressed remorse for being involved in ousting Sam Altman.
• He said in an X post that he deeply regretted his participation in removing his fellow cofounder.

Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI cofounder who's the company's chief scientist, has expressed deep regret in being part of the decision to oust Sam Altman.

"I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI," Sutskever said in an X post Monday. "I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company."

Soon after the chief scientist's statement, Altman responded to his post with three heart emojis.

The remorseful statement was in response to OpenAI's pushing Altman out of his CEO position on Friday afternoon and a weekend of failed talks to bring him back into the company.

The board pushed Altman out and declared Friday that it "no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."

The blunt statement also said the former CEO "was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities."

In a roller-coaster series of events over the weekend, Altman was being considered to return to the top position. He gave the board a deadline of 5 p.m. PT Saturday to resign if he was to come back, The Verge reported. But the deadline was later extended to 5 p.m. PT Sunday after the board failed to resign and an agreement wasn't reached, the outlet reported.

Less than 24 hours after Altman shared a photo of himself from OpenAI's office wearing a guest badge, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced Altman was joining Microsoft. Greg Brockman, the former OpenAI president, is also set to come on board to help lead Microsoft's "new advanced AI research team," Nadella said.

Sutskever was one of 490 OpenAI employees who signed an open letter calling for Altman to be reinstated, Wired reported.

The letter, shared Monday, showed the employees threatened to quit unless the board resigned, saying the board had "jeopardized" and "undermined" the company's mission, the outlet reported.