Common Traits of Altman, Jobs, and Musk... CEOs Who Were Ousted from Their Companies After Founding Them

Altman Removed by Board After 8 Years of Founding
WP "Not Uncommon in Tech Startup Industry"

'The father of ChatGPT,' Sam Altman, former CEO of OpenAI, is the founder of the company. He was the CEO of Y Combinator, a famous Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and in 2015, he gathered investors to establish OpenAI, a nonprofit organization with the goal of "democratizing the benefits of advanced artificial intelligence (AI)." However, the company's board dismissed him eight years after founding the company and just one year after the release of its core product, ChatGPT.

Sam Altman, former CEO of OpenAI [Photo by EPA Yonhap News]

It is not uncommon for founders of tech startups to be ousted by their boards. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, and Elon Musk, who created X.com, the predecessor of PayPal, had similar experiences. The Washington Post (WP) reported on the 20th (local time) these cases, stating, "It is still unclear how the OpenAI situation will be resolved, but such intrigues are not new in the world of tech startups and founders who have hit the jackpot."

① Apple: Steve Jobs

Jobs was the person who created Apple, which became the world's most valuable company this year by surpassing a market capitalization of $3 trillion (about 3,900 trillion KRW) for the first time in history. Apple, originally a computer manufacturing company, started in 1976 in Jobs' bedroom in California and later moved to the garage of Jobs' parents' house to build the business.

Steve Jobs Photo by AP Yonhap News

Jobs was dismissed from Apple just one year after the company launched the Macintosh computer, in 1985. He had been in a power struggle with then-CEO John Sculley and had conflicts with the board over salary issues. Jobs proposed a board vote to oust Sculley, but the internal sentiment turned against Jobs, and he was forced to leave the company.

After leaving, Jobs took a few Apple employees and founded Next, a high-performance computer manufacturing company, which was later acquired by Apple. He returned as Apple's CEO in 1997. He then created the iMac, iTunes, Apple Store, and iPod, followed by the iPhone, iPad, and App Store, playing a major role in growing Apple into a global company. He passed away in 2011 from pancreatic cancer.

② PayPal: Elon Musk

Elon Musk, currently CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), Neuralink, and The Boring Company, was also ousted from PayPal, a company he founded. Musk founded the financial services company X.com in 1999 and became CEO of PayPal, which was formed by merging with the online bank Confinity in 2000.

Elon Musk Photo by Reuters Yonhap News

However, Musk's tenure was short-lived. In September of the same year, while on his honeymoon trip to Australia, he was dismissed by the board. He clashed with the board over his autocratic management style and branding strategies, and was eventually ousted by co-founders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin.

Musk recalled the situation to Walter Isaacson, who wrote his biography released this year, saying, "At first, I was very angry. I even thought about assassinating them." However, he added, "In the end, I realized I was lucky to have been ousted. Otherwise, I would still be a slave at PayPal." He also said, "Of course, if I had stayed, PayPal would have become a $1 trillion company."

③ Tesla: Martin Eberhard

While Elon Musk elevated Tesla to its current status as the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer, the company was actually founded by American electrical engineer and entrepreneur Martin Eberhard. WP explains that Eberhard founded the company in 2003 and served as its first CEO, accurately predicting the revolution of lithium-ion batteries. He believed that if lithium-ion batteries were well made, electric vehicles could outperform internal combustion engine cars by a wide margin.

Martin Eberhard

Tesla's founder Eberhard was dismissed in 2007 by Musk, who was then chairman of the board. After PayPal was acquired by eBay, Musk became Tesla's largest shareholder and exercised management control to remove Eberhard. The reasons for the dismissal remain undisclosed, and Eberhard sued Musk over the matter. However, the two settled in September 2009, ending the dispute.

Under Musk's leadership, Tesla grew into the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer, and Musk became the wealthiest person in the world based on this success.

Martin Eberhard, Tesla's founder, was named one of Fortune's "24 Most Innovative People" in 2007. Before founding Tesla, he led the electronic book market by launching the e-book company NuvoMedia in 1997 and the Rocket eBook in 1998. He currently describes himself as a "retired businessman" on social media.

④ X (formerly Twitter): Noah Glass and Jack Dorsey

Noah Glass and Jack Dorsey, American IT entrepreneurs and software developers who created Twitter (now X), the social networking service that shook the world, also experienced being ousted by the board. Twitter's founders include Glass, Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone, but conflicts among them led to dismissals.

Noah Glass (Photo by Noah Glass)

Jack Dorsey (Photo by himself on SNS)

In brief, Glass founded the podcast company Odeo in 2005 and came up with the idea of a microblogging platform called Twitter, building the technology. Dorsey was working at Odeo with Williams and Stone, and in 2006, the three bought Odeo's assets from Glass and dismissed him.

However, the unity among the three did not last long. After ousting Glass, Williams grew tired of Dorsey's erratic behavior and expelled him in 2008. Dorsey returned in 2015 but left Twitter again in 2021. Twitter was acquired by Musk last year and renamed X this year.

Glass has been running Olo, a B2B software company developing online food ordering and delivery technology, since 2005. Dorsey remains a shareholder of X and an investor in Bluesky, a microblogging social networking service.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.