Microsoft is hiring former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman.
Former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and former President Greg Brockman arrived at the company’s San Francisco headquarters after an invite by interim CEO Mira Murati.
Altman was fired from OpenAI on Friday, after the board said it “no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.” After a weekend of negotiations to potentially bring Altman back to OpenAI, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that both Sam Altman and Greg Brockman will be joining to lead Microsoft’s new advanced AI research team.
We’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team,” says Nadella. “We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.”
Altman is considering a return to the company behind the Chat GPT bot while also considering starting a new artificial intelligence (AI) startup. .
Altman uploaded an image of himself wearing an OpenAI visitor badge on messaging platform X on Sunday with the caption: “first and last time i ever wear one of these.”
Altman’s dismissal enraged current and former employees concerned about how the abrupt management change would affect an upcoming $86 billion share sale.
According to The Information, Brockman, OpenAI’s former president and co-founder, also came to the workplace on Sunday. As part of the management move, Brockman stood aside as board chairman and announced his resignation on Friday.
If Altman returns to OpenAI, Microsoft (MSFT.O), its biggest sponsor, is considering taking a seat on the board, according to the Information, citing two people familiar with the discussions.
According to the source, Microsoft may join OpenAI’s board of directors or serve as a board observer without voting power.
Microsoft still has a multi billion dollar investment in OpenAI, rumored to be worth around 10 billion dollars. Microsoft is the exclusive cloud partner for OpenAI, and Microsoft’s cloud services power all OpenAI workloads across products, API services, and research.
“We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners,” Nadella said in his statement. “We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI’s new leadership team and working with them.”