AI leaders are reacting to OpenAI’s wild 24 hours with a mix of schadenfreude and concern

Sam Altman.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

It’s been a wild 24 hours at OpenAI.And its AI rivals are delighting in — and worried about — the company’s chaos.Meanwhile, CEO Sam Altman said Thursday the exec departures were unrelated to restructuring talks.

It’s been a wild 24 hours at OpenAI, with three high-level execs leaving the company — including CTO Mira Murati — and reports it’s restructuring as a for-profit benefit corporation.

Speaking at Italian Tech Week Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the executive departures and restructuring talks were unrelated.

But on social media, major players in the AI field reacted to the sweeping changes with serious concerns — or outright delight at seeing such serious shake-ups at one of the industry’s leading AI firms.

CEO Sam Altman’s dwindling C-Suite spurred jokes on social media, with some photoshopping old pictures of former execs. Several top researchers and execs have quit the company in recent months after Altman was briefly ousted from OpenAI.

Elon Musk likened the OpenAI chief to a shifty “Game Of Thrones” character.

The changes at the company come as OpenAI is seeking fresh funding that would value it at a staggering $150 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Reuters previously reported that the sky-high valuation depends on whether OpenAI can restructure and do away with a profit cap. Those plans are now in the works, and would result in the company no longer being nonprofit-controlled while giving Altman an equity stake, according to Reuters.

But one expert urged investors to reconsider whether to open their checkbooks for OpenAI.

AI analyst and Geometric Intelligence founder Gary Marcus — who has been critical of Altman — wrote on X that “investors shouldn’t be pouring more money at higher valuations, they should be asking what is going on.”

“GPT-5 hasn’t dropped, Sora hasn’t shipped, the company had an operating loss of $5b last year, there is no obvious moat,” Marcus wrote. “Meta is giving away similar software for free, many lawsuits pending, and people are valuing this company at $150 billion dollars?”

Other AI governance experts balked at the for-profit shift.

Nicolas Miailhe, a board member of the AI governance nonprofit The Future Society, called it “concerning.”

“Public interest alignment is key when building such powerful technology with deep consequences on our economies and societies,” Miailhe wrote.

“We’re working with our board to ensure that we’re best positioned to succeed in our mission,” an OpenAI spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement. “The nonprofit is core to our mission and will continue to exist.”

And in spite of the firestorm, some OpenAI executives were optimistic and doubling down on the future.

“I’ve been through enough ups and downs to know it’s never wise to bet against us,” wrote SVP of research Mark Chen, who will succeed departing executive Bob McGrew.

Meanwhile, in a note to OpenAI staff on Wednesday, Altman said changes at the top are a “natural part” of a company’s life.

“I obviously won’t pretend it’s natural for this one to be so abrupt, but we are not a normal company,” he wrote.