Sam Altman is now on board with Microsoft. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced this on X. This marks a new twist in the leadership dispute at OpenAI, the developer behind ChatGPT, after an oversight board at OpenAI revoked Altman’s trust last Friday. Altman will head a newly formed “Advanced AI Research Team” at Microsoft. Nadella mentioned that Microsoft aims to swiftly equip this team with the resources necessary for its success.
Joining Sam Altman are former OpenAI President Greg Brockman and several other AI experts from OpenAI, all making the move to Microsoft. Brockman bid farewell to OpenAI just a few hours after news broke about Altman’s involuntary departure.
For now, Microsoft plans to continue collaborating with the ChatGPT developer. Nadella stated, “We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue innovating with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite.” Microsoft already integrates OpenAI’s technology into its products, such as Bing Chat.
The company invested $10 billion in OpenAI this year. However, according to a report by Semafor, only a small portion of this money actually reached the startup. Just last Saturday, Nadella assured that they had “entered a long-term agreement with OpenAI.” Nonetheless, the way OpenAI’s leadership handled Altman’s dismissal, according to Semafor’s report, seems to strain the relationship.
There had been discussions about Altman potentially returning, but with Altman’s move to Microsoft, this option now appears definitively closed.
Chaos seems to reign at OpenAI following the ousting of their CEO. The company appointed Emmett Shear as the second representative for Sam Altman within two days. Nadella mentioned on X that Microsoft looks forward to “meeting Shear and OpenAI’s new leadership team and collaborating with them.”
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