'Boards Are Puppets of Investors': Ashneer Grover REACTS on Sam Altman's Sacking from OpenAI

Reacting to Sam Altman‘s ousting from ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Ashneer Grover has termed company boards as “puppets of investors”. He said he would love to see some day 60-year-old board members come together as founders to build anything meaningful.

OpenAI’s board on Friday sacked Sam Altman as the company’s CEO and director saying that “the board no longer has confidence in his ability”.

Ashneer Grover, who is also embroiled in a case by a company he co-founded BharatPe, in a post on X said, “Board mein khud ability hoti nahi kuchh banane ki — puppets of investors. Would love to see some day 60 year old Board members come together as Founders to build anything meaningful.”

Grover also reacted to a post by Sam Altman on X. After his ousting, Altman posted, “If I start going off, the OpenAI board should go after me for the full value of my shares.”

Responding to this, Ashneer Grover in a comment said, “Dude – fight on. The Board has tried to go after my shares – got nothing – so they are now going after me and my family through criminal cases. It’s a long fight! With you!!”

This reply by Ashneer Grover on Sam Altman’s post now stands deleted.

In another post on X after his sacking, Sam Altman said, “I love you all. Today was a weird experience in many ways. but one unexpected one is that it has been sorta like reading your own eulogy while you’re still alive. The outpouring of love is awesome. One takeaway: Go tell your friends how great you think they are.”

Meanwhile, after controversy at BharatPe last year, Grover took a voluntary leave and later resigned as BharatPe’s MD in 2022, while his wife, former head of controls Madhuri Jain, was fired over allegations of misappropriation of funds.

BharatPe had filed a criminal complaint with the Economic Offences Wing on 17 counts, including embezzlement, forgery, and criminal breach of trust, which could land the Ashneer Grovers in jail for up to ten years if proven guilty.

The company also filed a civil suit against Ashneer Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain, and other family members, seeking over Rs 88 crore in damages for alleged misappropriation of funds.

Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover were on Thursday evening stopped at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police while they were travelling to New York for a vacation.

The development came after allegations that Grover’s family siphoned off funds from BharatPe on the pretext of offering recruitment services, gave bank accounts numbers that were created after the dates when they were raised, as per the EOW’s preliminary report of an investigation.