OpenAI’s current batch of public controversies started early in the year. At the end of February, the company agreed to an apparently expansive Pentagon contract that its competitor Anthropic had refused to sign out of concerns about autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance. The move created controversy both internally and externally, and even CEO Sam Altman acknowledged OpenAI had come off as “opportunistic and sloppy.”

Then came the product announcements. Last month, OpenAI unexpectedly announced it would discontinue Sora, an AI video-generation app that it had planned to roll into ChatGPT. It exited its Disney partnership so rapidly that the companies had reportedly been working together just 30 minutes before Disney found out about the shutdown. The company said it was shelving long-gestating plans for the ability to sext with ChatGPT last month as well. “We cannot miss this moment because we are distracted by side quests,” OpenAI’s Fidji Simo reportedly told employees last month, as the company announced it would pivot to focusing on enterprise and coding tools. Even its once-heralded Stargate data center project may have largely stalled.

Just last Friday, the company announced a laundry list of changes to its C-suite. Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of AGI deployment — who was until recently the company’s CEO of applications — is stepping away from her role “for the next several weeks” due to medical leave, with company president Greg Brockman stepping in to run the product organization and run its super app initiative. CMO Kate Rouch decided to depart to focus on her health. Brad Lightcap decided to leave his role as OpenAI’s COO to instead start a role “focused on special projects” and reporting directly to Altman.

At the start of this week, a piece in The New Yorker expanded on years of reports of Altman potentially misleading OpenAI’s board, former company executives, and even contemporaries in roles he held before cofounding OpenAI.