When OpenAI announced Sam Altman’s return to the helm on Tuesday evening, an impromptu party broke out at the company’s San Francisco offices.
As staff celebrated the reinstatement of the co-founder who was dramatically sacked just four days earlier, investors in the company and other tech leaders rushed to offer their support to Altman, with a flood of heart emojis washing across social media site X.
“Congrats to OpenAI! Great to see the good guys win!” wrote Salesforce founder Marc Benioff. He was one of a number of influential figures in Silicon Valley’s tight-knit tech scene to offer public support, even though he had tried to poach OpenAI’s employees earlier in the crisis, with an offer to match their salaries.