US SEC investigating if OpenAI investors were misled: report

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is scrutinizing internal communications by OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman as part of an investigation into whether the company’s investors were misled, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The regulator has been seeking internal records from current and former OpenAI officials and directors, and sent a subpoena to the company in December, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter, adding that it followed OpenAI board’s decision in November to fire Altman as CEO and oust him from the board.

Altman was fired in November after the board “concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities”, OpenAI said at the time in a blog post. Altman was reinstated a few days later.

The investigation was described as a predictable response to the former OpenAI board’s claim in its November statement, the WSJ report said. One of the people told WSJ that the SEC hasn’t pointed to any specific statement or communication by Altman that it has deemed misleading.

OpenAI, SEC, and Microsoft did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.