Sam Altman says he harbors 'zero ill will' towards former OpenAI board member Ilya Sutskever

• OpenAI's Sam Altman says he has "zero ill will" towards cofounder Ilya Sutskever.
• Sutskever, a former OpenAI board member, had previously voted to fire Altman as CEO.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he has no hard feelings towards former board member Ilya Sutskever.

Sutskever, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman, voted to fire Altman. Altman has since been reinstated as CEO.

"I love and respect Ilya, I think he's a guiding light of the field and a gem of a human being. I harbor zero ill will towards him," Altman said in a message to the company on Wednesday.

Sutskever was concerned that Altman hadn't given enough thought to the risks of OpenAI's technology, per a story from The New York Times on November 18.

The OpenAI chief scientist also formed a "Super Alignment" team within OpenAI to ensure that future versions of GPT-4, the technology behind ChatGPT, wouldn't pose a danger to humanity, according to The Times.

But Sutskever later expressed remorse for ousting Altman.

"I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI," he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on November 20.

Altman eventually returned as CEO after nearly all of OpenAI's staff threatened to quit unless he was brought back.

However, Sutskever didn't attend the impromptu party that employees organized to celebrate Altman's return.

"You shouldn't read anything into the fact that Ilya was not at the party last night. Ilya wants what is best for the company and has been very clear that what is best is having Sam back as CEO," Sutskever's lawyer Alex Weingarten told Business Insider last week.

Besides reinstating Altman, OpenAI welcomed a new initial board comprising Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo.

Taylor, who is OpenAI's new board chair, said on Wednesday that OpenAI backer Microsoft would be given a non-voting board observer seat.

"While Ilya will no longer serve on the board, we hope to continue our working relationship and are discussing how he can continue his work at OpenAI," Altman told the company on the same day.

Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.