According to the Wall Street Journal, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is conducting a review of theOpenAIand its Chief Executive OfficerSam AltmanAn investigation was conducted, with concerns centering on whether the company's statements to investors were misleading. Altman had been removed and reappointed after an employee revolt during last November's tumultuous situation, which caused widespread concern.
The SEC is reviewing emails from Altman and others to see if investors were misled in the November incident, according to the investigation. In that "powder keg incident," which Microsoft employees called "turkey shoot mayhem," the company's board of directors fired Altman, claiming that he was "not always forthcoming" in his communications, but reappointed him within days after an employee revolt and revised his rankings. The company's board of directors, which fired Altman, claimed he was "not always forthcoming" in his communications, but reappointed him within days of the staff revolt and revised the rankings to no longer include the people who fired him.
The investigation is based in New York, and SEC officials have asked a number ofadvancedOpenAI employees keep internal documents. This is a common practice in such investigations, and the investigating agency is expected to delve into the inner workings of the incident, the anonymous source said.
Previously, officials at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan and other regulators had begun questioning executives about the exact meaning of "inconsistent and candid communications" during the events of last November. The emergence of this new SEC investigation, which is being conducted concurrently with OpenAI's internal and external investigations, further exacerbated the company's turmoil over Thanksgiving last year.
The New York Times had reported the day before that the internal investigation into Altman's dismissal, conducted by the law firm WilmerHale, was nearing completion. According to people familiar with the matter, Altman himself has been telling people that the company's investigation will be concluded soon and that its results could be presented to the OpenAI board in early March.
Amid a steady stream of leaks and tweets, the public is still only getting a piecemeal view of OpenAI's Thanksgiving Day event, even though its products, including ChatGPT and the upcoming text-to-video generator Sora, continue to make it the world's most important AI company. Now, the government may force OpenAI to disclose more information about the fiasco.