OpenAI employees reject Salesforce CEO's job offers in AI research team

Sam Altman Ousted: Following the firing of Sam Altman, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), offered a job to any OpenAI researcher who quits. In a lengthy post he mentioned that the company would match the full cash and OTE (open trade equity) of researchers who quit OpenAI 'to immediately join' the Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team under Silvio Savarese.

He also asked the employees to send the CVs directly to him.

Salesforce will match any OpenAI researcher who has tendered their resignation full cash & equity OTE to immediately join our Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team under Silvio Savarese. Send me your cv directly to ceo@salesforce.com. Einstein is the most successful… pic.twitter.com/1RXoc9ekeo

— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) November 20, 2023

OpenAI employees' letter

This comes after over 500 employees signed a letter stating that the signatories are 'unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment, and care for our mission and employees'. The letter further mentioned that every member of the board has to resign and Sam Altman should be reinstated. They further threatened that if this is not met with, they all will jump to Microsoft.

Also Read: OpenAI investors mull suing the board for firing Sam Altman: Report

OpenAI employees' reaction

However, many of the employees rejected Benioff's offer. OpenAI's Tony Wu called the offer super generous but rejected it by saying it he would stick with Sam Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman.

"@Benioff This is a super generous offer! I'm sure my team really appreciates it. But we're with @sama @miramurati and @gdb to the end."

The head of Applied Research at OpenAI Boris Power explained that the employees are not quitting because of compensation.

Lol, like it was ever about compensation. We got >95% in less than 24 hours, and the compensation never crossed my mind!

Can you give us 700 of our amazing colleagues, then we may budge 🚀

— Boris Power (@BorisMPower) November 20, 2023

Sam Altman's Message

Sam Altman in an effort to stop these attempts to woo his team, posted on X saying that the team has more unity than before. He went on to say that he will soon start working together with OpenAI employees in some way or the other.

we have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before.

we are all going to work together some way or other, and i’m so excited.

one team, one mission.

— Sam Altman (@sama) November 20, 2023