It’s hard to tell from the outside. At a glance it appears to be an attempted power grab by the board of directors which backfired and ended with the board being forced to resign.

The board fired the CEO for “not being candid” One of the founders quit because of that move One of the board members “regretted his involvement” with the firing

Microsoft flexed its muscle by offering the CEO a job along with ANY other OpenAI employee who jumped ship. 95% of OpenAI employees were ready to move to Microsoft unless the board resigned. The board resigned and everyone came back, a new board is being formed.

The news that seems to have triggered all this; the newest version of their AI, Q*, can reliably do basic math.