Sam Altman wants people to move on from the 'soap opera' that was his brief firing from OpenAI

• Sam Altman doesn't want people to dwell on his brief firing from OpenAI last year.
• When asked about the incident, Altman likened his firing to a "soap opera."

Sam Altman would rather not talk about his brief firing from OpenAI.

Altman and his company's vice president of global affairs, Anna Makanju, were speaking to Bloomberg's Brad Stone in Davos on Monday.

Stone asked Makanju about the "saga" involving Altman's ouster, which unfolded over five days in November when OpenAI's board fired Altman and rehired him swiftly.

Altman cut in, telling Stone: "Anna can clearly answer this if she wants to.

"But, like, is really what you want to spend our time on, like, the soap opera rather than what AGI is going to do?" Altman added, referring to OpenAI's work in artificial general intelligence.

"I mean, I'm wrapping it up," Stone told Altman. "But I think people are interested."

"Go ahead," Altman replied, gesturing at Makanju.

Makanju told Stone that OpenAI's staff had been caught off guard by the news that Altman was out.

"It happened the day before the entire company was supposed to take a week off. We were all on Friday, preparing to have a restful week after an insane year," Makanju told Stone. "Then, many of us slept on the floor of the office for a week."

The ChatGPT maker abruptly removed Sam Altman as CEO on November 17.

The company's board said in a statement announcing his firing that Altman "was not consistently candid in his communications with the board" but did not give further details.

Altman's sudden departure resulted in a chaotic leadership transition. The company appointed two interim CEOs before reinstating Altman just days later.

Altman told Trevor Noah in a podcast interview last month that the experience was "unbelievably painful."

"The only comparable set of life experience I had, and that one was, of course, much worse, was when my dad died," Altman told Noah.

"That was much worse, but there's echoes of that same thing here," Altman said on the podcast.

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