Nadella Reveals Microsoft's $25B Plan to Absorb OpenAI Team After Altman Firing
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified in the Elon Musk vs. OpenAI trial, revealing that Microsoft prepared a $25 billion contingency plan to hire Sam Altman and key OpenAI staff within 24 hours of Altman's sudden firing in November 2023. The plan involved creating a new subsidiary to absorb the talent, matching their compensation packages, but was abandoned after Altman was reinstated. Nadella criticized the board's handling of the dismissal as amateurish and noted the lack of clear explanation regarding the termination reasons. He also highlighted Microsoft's limited formal power over OpenAI's governance, despite being its largest investor. Although Microsoft could not force board appointments, it objected to candidates with ties to competitors like Google and Amazon. Additionally, testimony from OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever revealed that the board briefly explored merger talks with rival AI firm Anthropic during the crisis. These revelations underscore the intense power struggles and strategic maneuvers between Microsoft and OpenAI during the leadership turmoil, emphasizing Microsoft's urgent efforts to protect its significant AI investments and interests.
Editorial responsibility
- No named human review is recorded for this page.
- Reports are grouped by semantic similarity and deterministic rules. Language models may assist titles, summaries, translation and cross-source analysis; the page itself is projected from evidence records.
- Current automated evidence projection