Sam Altman is back at the helm of OpenAI, days after the board abruptly ousted him. Almost everything else is still in flux.

The deal struck Tuesday night to restore Altman as CEO is a long way from the ultimate goal he wanted to achieve heading into a weekend of intense negotiations. He had lobbied for an entirely new slate of directors—built on the ashes of the directors who fired him—and wanted to rejoin the board again himself, according to people familiar with the matter.