OpenAI Co-Founder Ilya Sutskever Announces Exit From Company
Sutskever was one of several board members involved in the ousting of Sam Altman from OpenAI last November.

OpenAI's chief scientist and co-founder Ilya Sutskever is leaving the Sam Altman-led artificial intelligence company. In a post on X early on Wednesday, the Russia-born computer scientist said that the company's trajectory had been nothing short of "miraculous" and he was confident of its ability to build artificial general intelligence in a "safe" and "beneficial" manner.
"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 said.
Sutskever's exit marks the end of a nearly decade-long tenure at OpenAI, which he first joined in 2015 after leaving Google, having been recruited by Elon Musk. Prior to that, he worked at the University of Toronto, having made a name for himself on account of his research on neural networks.
After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI. The companyâs trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous, and Iâm confident that OpenAI will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial under the leadership of @sama, @gdb, @miramurati and now, under theâ¦
— Ilya Sutskever (@ilyasut) May 14, 2024
Following the announcement, Altman tweeted that Sutskever is "one of the greatest minds of our generation" and that OpenAI "would not be what it is without him".
The OpenAI chief executive officer announced that Jakub Pachoki would be replacing Sutskever as the firm's chief scientist. Pachoki has previously served as the company's director of research and spearheaded development of GPT-4 and OpenAI Five.
OpenAI has released a statement regarding the realignments at the firm.
Ilya and OpenAI are going to part ways. This is very sad to me; Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend. His brilliance and vision are well known; his warmth and compassion are less well known but no lessâ¦
— Sam Altman (@sama) May 14, 2024
Sutskever was one of several board members involved in the ousting of Altman from OpenAI last November. The computer scientist had pushed for Altman's removal, citing concerns about safety in the operations of OpenAI, Bloomberg had reported at the time.
However, Altman's firing led to a revolt from investors, with several employees threatening to quit. After the initial chaos of the announcement, Altman was reinstated days later, with Sutskever saying he regretted his role in the CEO's ousting.
After Altman's return, Sutskever largely disappeared from public view, sparking speculation about his continued role at OpenAI. His post on X announcing his resignation is the first time he's posted anything since the debacle.
(With inputs from Bloomberg)