More than 700 of the company's roughly 770 employees have signed a letter threatening to quit unless the current board resigns and reappoints Altman, according to a person familiar with the matter. In a bizarre twist, the letter included among the signatories Ilya Sutskever, the company's chief scientist and a key member of the company's four-person board, who voted to oust Altman on Friday.

"Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI," the employees wrote in the letter. "We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment and care for our mission and employees."