Microsoft’s CEO announced in the early hours of Monday morning that Sam Altman, who was ousted from artificial intelligence startup OpenAI in a surprise announcement Friday night, will join Microsoft.
“We are very excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, along with their colleagues, will join Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team.” Microsoft boss Satya Nadella shared.
Brockman, a close ally of Altman, said he would resign from the board, but later resigned entirely from his role as president of OpenAI in protest of Altman’s ouster.
It is unclear which other former OpenAI employees will move to Microsoft, although the numbers could be in the hundreds, as OpenAI faces a potential employee revolt, according to reports.
Altman responded to Nadella with: “the mission continues.”
Microsoft shares rose more than 2% in premarket trading hours Monday following the news.
Nadella revealed in a post X post that Atlman will serve as CEO of a new group, “setting a new pace for innovation.”
“We’ve learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios, and LinkedIn, and I hope you do the same,” Nadella. aggregate.
The Microsoft CEO apparently remained positive about the turmoil at OpenAI, where the board appeared to quietly find a fellow tech genius to take Altman’s place: Emmet Shear, the former CEO of Twitch, a proprietary live-streaming service. from Amazon.
Shear, 40, who ended his 16-year tenure at Twitch in March, was named interim CEO of OpenAI.
“I took this job because I believe OpenAI is one of the most important companies out there today.” Posted shear on X On Monday in the morning.
After the quibbles, Shear wrote: “It is clear that the process and communications surrounding Sam’s expulsion have been very poorly handled, which has seriously damaged our confidence,” adding that he plans to “fire” and hire an independent investigator to investigate the entire matter. process that leads to this point and generate a complete report.”
Shear’s post concluded a whirlwind weekend that began when OpenAI announced the shocking executive restructuring on Friday. The board vaguely cited Altman as “not consistently truthful in his communications with the board.”
The leading artificial intelligence firm did not elaborate on Altman’s mistakes that led to his resignation.
Nadella assured that Microsoft “remains committed to our partnership with OpenAI and is confident in our product roadmap, in our ability to continue innovating with everything we announced in Microsoft Ignite and in continuing to support our customers and partners.”
As CEO of OpenAI, Altman landed a $10 billion “multi-year” deal with Microsoft earlier this year, expanding a partnership that began in 2019 with just $1 billion from the big tech company.
To date, Microsoft has pumped $13 billion into the company for a 49% stake amid intense competition from rivals such as Google. OpenAI has reportedly been offering packages worth up to $10 million to lure top AI talent away from Google, which is rumored to be in talks to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Character.AI, according to Reuters – an AI bot startup developed by two former Google employees.
Altman hinted last week that OpenAI could be receiving more financial backing from its lead investor as it looks to build “super-smart” technology tools that would be as smart as humans.
Microsoft is said to have been surprised by the news, with Tech expert Kara Swisher reports that the company and other key partners “found out minutes before the statement was published.”
The Post has sought comment from Microsoft and OpenAI.
Atlman, who co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 along with Elon Musk and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel, has become the face of the AI movement.
However, as AI has grown in popularity, the companies behind the technology have faced increasing regulatory scrutiny on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for laws regulating the use of the technology. AI.
In May, Altman expressed support for federal regulation of AI during an appearance on Capitol Hill, where he testified that rules were needed to prevent “significant harm to the world.”
Altman also raised eyebrows earlier this year by signing a statement declaring that AI was a potential existential risk on par with nuclear weapons and pandemics if not properly guided.
