Highlights
- Murati said Altman was "not always" honest and undermined her as chief technology officer.
- She described "complete chaos" during November 2023 crisis when Altman was briefly fired.
- Former executive now runs AI startup Thinking Machines Lab, valued at $12 billion.
The former chief technology officer, who left OpenAI in 2024 to start AI company Thinking Machines Lab, gave evidence in Elon Musk's legal case against OpenAI.
Her testimony came after two days of evidence from OpenAI president Greg Brockman. When asked about Altman's leadership, Murati said he was "not always" honest with her.
She told Forbes that he created a "very difficult and chaotic environment" by telling different people different things based on what he thought they wanted to hear.
She talked about the November 2023 crisis when board members fired Altman and asked her to become interim chief executive. "OpenAI was at catastrophic risk of falling apart.
I was concerned about the company completely blowing up," she said, calling the period "complete and utter chaos."
During the crisis, Murati stayed in close touch with Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella. She worried researchers might leave for rival companies including Google's DeepMind and Musk's xAI.
Murati joined OpenAI in 2018 and managed engineering, research, product and safety teams.
She helped arrange three deals with Microsoft, which has put over $13 billion into OpenAI since 2019 and provides the computing power needed to build its models.
Musk's legal case argues OpenAI broke its original promise to be a nonprofit working for humanity and became a profit-making machine for Microsoft.
After Altman's brief firing, Nadella publicly offered to hire him and any leaving staff. Hundreds of workers, including chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, signed a letter demanding Altman's return. He came back days later but continued his previous leadership style, Murati told the court.
