New evidence from the Musk v. Altman trial paints a devastating portrait of Mira Murati's role in the 2023 OpenAI coup: she was the one who assembled the case against Sam Altman, and then the first to sign the petition demanding his return.
The roots of the conflict stretch back a year before the coup. A September 2022 internal document shows Murati directly handed Altman a list of complaints. OpenAI's top priority at the time was hitting $100 million in revenue, and Altman's attitude was "we have to get there by any means necessary." But Murati wrote that "building what users want isn't in OpenAI's DNA." A research company being forced to chase revenue, with execs caught in the middle. She complained that Altman constantly shifted priorities and manufactured panic, often pushing "we're not fast enough" while simultaneously saying "I'm not sure what's going on, maybe I'm wrong" — essentially pressuring the team based on incomplete understanding.
By 2023, Murati started feeding co-founder Ilya Sutskever a steady stream of screenshots, Slack logs, and internal documents, telling him that Altman had management issues going back to Y Combinator. Sutskever compiled these into a 52-page memo for the board. In another deposition, Murati claimed Altman lied to her about AI safety reviews: he said the legal department had determined a certain model didn't need to go through the safety committee, but when she checked with chief legal officer Jason Kwon, the story didn't match — so she submitted the model for review herself. Former board member Helen Toner testified that the materials from Murati and Sutskever "significantly advanced" the board's decision.
On November 16, four directors unanimously signed off on firing Altman. Murati was named interim CEO and volunteered to call Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with the news.
The court released 78 text messages between Murati and Altman, stretching from Sunday night into early Monday. In them, Murati relays the board's hardline stance: they "don't care if everyone resigns," they just "don't want you touching AGI," and they've already found "some guy from Twitch" (former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear) to be the new CEO. But in the same thread, Murati tells Altman she "hopes Nadella can overturn this." The interim CEO appointed by the board was already secretly recruiting outside help for the man she helped oust.
The turning point came when Murati sensed the board was losing its nerve. On Sunday, the board released a statement "firmly supporting" the termination. Murati texted Nadella: "I won't sign this." Early Monday she messaged Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott: "The board is about to resign." Scott replied: "For real this time?" She answered: "Looks like it. Ilya signed our petition." Then 750 employees signed a letter demanding the board resign and Altman be reinstated — and the first name on that letter was Murati's.
Toner's assessment in her testimony was blunt: after Altman's firing, Murati was "extremely uncooperative" and "utterly passive," and "completely unwilling to tell the team that her conversations with the board were largely what drove them to fire Altman." She was the only person who could have legitimized the decision, but she refused to stand behind it. As a result, employees thought the whole thing was a surprise attack by outside directors, and they quickly rallied behind Altman. Toner's exact words: "She was waiting to see which way the wind was blowing, but she didn't realize she was the wind."
Behind the scenes, Murati fed the board evidence to justify the firing. When the backlash came, she refused to defend that decision, turned to Microsoft for help, and finally led the revolt to bring Altman back. In the entire coup, Murati stood only with herself.