Ilya Sutskever’s art still hangs on OpenAI’s office walls even as he’s become invisible there in the wake of Sam Altman’s return.
The chief scientist and co-founder behind some of OpenAI’s biggest breakthroughs in generative AI, who played a key role in the shocking November board ouster of CEO and co-founder Altman, has not been seen at the company’s San Francisco offices this week, according to two people familiar with the company. Business Insider spoke to three people familiar with Sutskever’s visibility at the company since the drama ended, plus two people familiar with those involved. They requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss internal matters. Their identities are known to Insider.
While Sutskever remains in company systems like Slack, and his presence is discernible through his drawings and paintings used as decor, his present and future at OpenAI has yet to be addressed officially by leadership, another person said.
“Ilya is always going to have had an important role,” one person said. “But, you know, there are a lot of other people who are picking up and taking that responsibility that historically Ilya had.”
Another person said there’s some discussion happening that Sutskever will get a new title at the company, and that there’s a desire to “find a role for him.” A smiling photo posted to X last Friday of Sutskever with co-founder and president Greg Brockman, who was the first to quit in solidarity with Altman, was a “clear signal that they all want to get back to work,” the person said. Still, his position at the company is “TBD,” the person added.
This apparent state of limbo is not exactly surprising given Sutskever’s position at the company, and his involvement in Altman’s poorly justified firing. It led to Brockman quitting and nearly every other OpenAI employee threatening to do the same if Altman was not reinstated and the board that fired him gone. Most of them are. Sutskever was on that board, too, but his importance and influence at the company, as well as his status as a co-founder, is exponentially more than any of the other previous board members.
One sign of the ongoing tumult with Sutskever is a Wednesday post to X, his first since the photo with Brockman last week, which was deleted by Thursday. The post said: “I learned many lessons this past month. One such lesson is that the phrase ‘the beatings will continue until morale improves’ applies more often than it has any right to.” The popular phrase is often used in memes to denote the ironic cycle of low morale begetting punishment, which increases low morale. A digital drawing posted Tuesday to his Instagram page, where he only posts his art, remains up – a large face with a stern expression wearing pants and what appear to be boots.
Another sign is that Sutskever has hired his own lawyer in Alex Weingarten of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, who chairs its litigation practice, as BI previously reported. Weingarten did not respond to BI’s requests for comment on this story. He previously told us, “Ilya wants what is best for the company.” An OpenAI spokesperson did also did not respond to a request for comment.
Sutskever is a “very deep” person, emotionally and intellectually, one of the people familiar said. He’s someone who “may not seem fully present in the moment but he’s just processing things differently.”
He often recommends OpenAI employees read The Gulag Archipelago, a nearly 700-page non-fiction book about the system of forced labor in the Soviet Union. He was born in Soviet Russia and moved away at a young age. Another person familiar described Sutskever in simple terms as someone who “thinks of himself as an AI god” and who became frustrated at “being pushed out of decisions” regarding ChatGPT-5 and plans to scale the product and company.
Sutskever is seen internally as an AI “visionary,” and while his “academic” style did not win as much loyalty from engineers as Altman and Brockman, Sutskever’s contributions are still widely respected by many employees.
While Altman in a statement after his return to the company said he has “no ill will toward Ilya” and wanted to “continue our working relationship,” he admitted to The Verge to being “hurt and angry.”
One Microsoft insider familiar with Altman, Sutskever, and Brockman doesn’t believe the three can ever work well together again, particularly Sutskever and Brockman. In Silicon Valley, founders turning on one another is considered sacrilege.
Likewise, some of OpenAI’s engineers who are loyal to Altman and Brockman may also find it difficult to work with Sutskever because of his role in the ouster, a former employee said.
“Once trust is broken,” the former staffer said, “it cannot be regained.”
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