Helen Toner gives first detailed public account of the OpenAI board's decision to fire Altman

Helen Toner, who sat on OpenAI’s board when it fired Sam Altman in November 2023, gave her first detailed public account of the board’s reasoning on the TED AI Show podcast. Six months on, with the company’s own account still limited to a single sentence about “not consistently candid” communication, Toner’s interview was the fullest description any board member had given.

She said the board had, “for years,” been unable to trust what Altman told it: he had, in her account, been “withholding information, misrepresenting things that were happening at the company, in some cases outright lying to the board.” As examples, she said the board learned of ChatGPT’s November 2022 launch from Twitter rather than from Altman beforehand; that he did not disclose his ownership of the OpenAI Startup Fund while presenting himself as an independent, disinterested board member; and that he gave inaccurate information about the company’s safety review processes, which she said made it impossible for the board to know how well those processes were actually working. She also said Altman had, on separate occasions, given false information to try to push a different board member off the board in retaliation for a paper Toner had co-authored that Altman felt was critical of OpenAI — a claim that, in her telling, contributed directly to the board’s decision to act when it did.

Altman responded publicly the day the interview aired, saying he “respectfully, but very significantly” disagreed with her account. Board chair Brett Taylor said the board was “disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues,” pointing to an independent review by the law firm WilmerHale that had concluded the November decision was not driven by concerns about product safety, security, the pace of development or OpenAI’s finances.

The interview did not change OpenAI’s leadership, but it hardened the split between Toner’s account of a pattern of dishonesty and the company’s position that the matter was closed, and it became a primary source for later reporting on the firing.