Before Emmett Shear accepted the Interim CEO role at OpenAI, the board offered it to Nat Friedman, the former CEO of Microsoft-owned GitHub and a prolific investor in artificial intelligence startups, as well as Alex Wang, co-founder and CEO of Scale AI, according to people familiar with the matter. Both declined the offer, the people said.

The refusals show the challenges facing OpenAI’s board in finding a new leader following the board's Friday firing of OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, which set off a string of senior resignations. Late Sunday, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever said Altman would not be reinstated, as some employees wanted, and that Shear, co-founder of Amazon-owned video streaming site Twitch, would take over as Interim CEO.