I’m just a guy but the impression I get from occasionally reading the Money Stuff newsletter is that basically anything bad you do at a public company is securities fraud, because if you do a bad thing and don’t tell investors, then people who buy the securities you offer are doing so without full information because of you.
I doubt the reason for his ousting was fraud-related, but if it was I think it’s unlikely to be viewed as securities fraud simply because OpenAI hasn’t issued any public securities. I’m not a securities lawyer, but my hunch is even if you could prosecute Altman for defrauding e.g. Microsoft shareholders, it would be far easier to sue directly for regular fraud.
MSFT market cap dropped about $40B in a 15 minute period on the news, so maybe someone can argue securities fraud on that basis? I dunno, I look forward to the inevitable Matt Levine article.
Can someone from OpenAI anonymously spill the 🍵?
Not from OpenAI but the language sounds like this could be the board protecting themselves against securities fraud committed by Altman.
What kind of securities fraud could he have committed?
I’m just a guy but the impression I get from occasionally reading the Money Stuff newsletter is that basically anything bad you do at a public company is securities fraud, because if you do a bad thing and don’t tell investors, then people who buy the securities you offer are doing so without full information because of you.
I doubt the reason for his ousting was fraud-related, but if it was I think it’s unlikely to be viewed as securities fraud simply because OpenAI hasn’t issued any public securities. I’m not a securities lawyer, but my hunch is even if you could prosecute Altman for defrauding e.g. Microsoft shareholders, it would be far easier to sue directly for regular fraud.
MSFT market cap dropped about $40B in a 15 minute period on the news, so maybe someone can argue securities fraud on that basis? I dunno, I look forward to the inevitable Matt Levine article.