After firing CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI’s board of directors reached out to the CEO of its rival, Anthropic, to propose a merger, but the proposal was quickly rejected, according to news reports. The board approached Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei “about a potential merger of the two companies” as “part of an effort by OpenAI to persuade Amodei to replace Altman as CEO,” The Information reported yesterday, citing “a person with direct knowledge” of the contact.
“It’s not clear whether the merger proposal led to any serious discussion. Amodei quickly turned down the CEO offer due to his position at Anthropic,” The Information wrote.
The report was subsequently confirmed by Reuters. “OpenAI’s board of directors approached rival Anthropic’s CEO about replacing chief Sam Altman and potentially merging the two AI startups, according to two people briefed on the matter,” Reuters wrote. “Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei declined on both fronts, the people said.”
We contacted OpenAI and Anthropic today and will update this article if we get any response.
Amodei worked for OpenAI for over four years and co-founded Anthropic in 2021. Amodei was part of a group that “left [OpenAI] in late 2020 to launch Anthropic over concerns the company was moving too quickly to commercialize its technology,” The Information wrote. That included his sister, Daniela Amodei, who is president of Anthropic.
OpenAI faces employee revolt, possible customer exodus
Altman was fired on Friday by the board of directors of OpenAI, Inc., the nonprofit that controls the for-profit subsidiary OpenAI Global. The firing was controversial, to put it mildly: By the end of Monday, 747 out of 770 OpenAI employees reportedly signed a letter threatening to quit and join Altman at Microsoft if the firing isn’t reversed. OpenAI is currently being led by interim CEO Emmett Shear.