OpenAI's Ilya Sutskever, man behind failed bid to oust Sam Altman, is leaving the ChatGPT maker

OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who was one of the persons behind the failed bid to oust its chief executive officer (CEO) Sam Altman last year, is now leaving the startup.

Till his exit, Sutskever was serving as the chief scientist of the company, which has developed the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT.

Sutskever took to social platform X (formerly Twitter) on May 14 to confirm his departure. "After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI. The company’s trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous, and I’m confident that OpenAI will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial," he posted.

Sutskever also thanked Sam Altman, along with others in the OpenAI top brass. While he did not reveal the exact details of his next project, he said it is something that is "personally meaningful" to him.

"I am excited for what comes next — a project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time," Sutskever tweeted.

Behind bid to oust Altman

In November last year, the board of OpenAI had removed Sam Altman as its chief executive, citing the lack of confidence in his leadership. Sutskever was among the four persons who had voted to oust him.

However, within a couple of days, OpenAI employees threatened to resign en-masse if Altman was not brought back to the helm. In a turnaround, Sutskever also signed an open letter of employees that called for reinstating Altman.

After Altman returned as OpenAI's CEO within a few days of his exit, the board was rejigged and Sutskever was not included as a member. This raised a cloud over his future in the company, analysts had said.

However, Altman has went on record to describe Sutskever as a "friend" and someone whose departure from OpenAi is "very sad". “OpenAI would not be what it is without him,” Altman was quoted as saying in a blog posted by the company.

Sutskever's role as the chief scientist of OpenAI would now be taken over by Jakub Pachocki, who earlier served as the company's director of research.