Sam Altman, the former CEO of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, the company's co-founder and president, and other former staff members will be joining Microsoft, the software giant's CEO Satya Nadella said in a post on X.

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. We look forward to getting to know Emmett…
— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) November 20, 2023

Altman left OpenAI last week after the board said it no longer had confidence in him to continue leading the company. Brockman announced his resignation shortly after Altman was ousted. Altman will lead a new advanced AI research team, Nadella said.

OpenAI's major investors, led by Nadella, reportedly pushed to reinstate Sam Altman as CEO and replace the current board, following the unexpected firing, with intense negotiations involved in the process.

"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’m looking forward to having you do the same," Nadella said in a post directed at Altman.

Nadella said that Microsoft remains committed to its partnership with OpenAI, and looks forward to getting to know new CEO Emmet Shear and working with the company.

Worldcoin [WLD], the cryptocurrency of one of Altman's other projects, is up over 10% on the news, according to CoinDesk Indices data.

Open ai Sam Altman Microsoft AI Management

Sam Reynolds

Sam Reynolds is a senior reporter based in Taipei. Sam was part of the CoinDesk team that won the 2023 Gerald Loeb award in the breaking news category for coverage of FTX's collapse. Prior to CoinDesk, he was a reporter with Blockworks and a semiconductor analyst with IDC.