Throughout it all, one unassuming character seemed to be everywhere at once: OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. At first, she was made interim CEO, before immediately ceding the position to outsider Emmett Shear. Within days, Altman was back at the helm of the company, and the board that had come together to remove him was largely gone.

Murati had publicly supported Altman’s reinstatement and posted online in favor of him returning to his role at the company. But over time, reports surfaced that she had had a significant hand in his ouster. She had, by some accounts, more or less started the internal conversation about concerns surrounding Altman and funneled a significant amount of information — including screenshots, documentation of text messages, and allegations of mismanagement during Altman’s time at Y Combinator — to cofounder Ilya Sutskever, who then took his concerns to the OpenAI board in the form of a 52-page memo. In testimony this week, former board member Helen Toner said that Murati and Sutskever’s concerns had materially advanced the board’s own, relating to a pattern of deceit, Altman’s “resistance” of board oversight, and his “manipulation” of board processes and management problems.

On November 16th, 2023, four members of OpenAI’s board of directors — Toner, Ilya Sutskever, Adam D’Angelo, and Tasha McCauley — unanimously signed a document terminating Altman’s employment with OpenAI and naming Murati the new interim CEO.

Though Murati had, by many accounts, played an integral part in the entire lead-up to Altman’s ouster, Murati almost immediately seemed to switch her support to Altman.