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After a chaotic few days of boardroom coups and attempted counter-coups at OpenAI<\/a>, Microsoft Corp<\/a>. said it would hire Sam Altman<\/a> to lead a new artificial intelligence research team. It was a stunning turn for Microsoft, which had bet big on OpenAI and its former chief executive officer, Altman.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n But it\u2019s not an ideal outcome for Altman or Microsoft. Which is why a group of OpenAI <\/a>investors is still pushing for Altman\u2019s return as chief, a move Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella<\/a> said he\u2019s open to.<\/p>\n Nearly all of OpenAI\u2019s roughly 770 employees have signed a letter to OpenAI\u2019s board threatening to quit unless its directors resign over their handling of Altman\u2019s termination. \u201cMicrosoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join,” the letter read.<\/p>\n If that were to pass, it would effectively be an acquisition without a term sheet, which at first would seem like a coup for Nadella.<\/p>\n While Microsoft shares rose to an all-time high following the news, Altman\u2019s hiring would come with complications. For one, onboarding droves of new employees will be insanely costly, particularly in a year that Microsoft froze salaries for full-time workers.<\/p>\n On top of that, Microsoft still has a commitment of more than $13 billion to OpenAI. It\u2019s not in Microsoft\u2019s interest to blow up the startup.<\/p>\n Any employees who do join Microsoft can\u2019t simply replicate the work they were doing on OpenAI properties like GPT-5 without inviting a nightmare of claims over trade-secret theft. That\u2019s partly why there\u2019s been such a strong push to reinstate Altman at OpenAI, rather than have him try to conjure something as significant from scratch.<\/p>\n Nadella has suggested Microsoft would make the best of a bad situation. He stressed publicly that Altman would have autonomy at Microsoft, citing LinkedIn, GitHub and the maker of Minecraft as examples of Microsoft units that effectively operate independently.<\/p>\n The message is likely aimed at winning over OpenAI engineers and computer scientists wary of joining a corporate behemoth with some 200,000 employees and sprawling business divisions. These are people who think deeply about how AI could influence humanity, not about how it could improve Bing. And there are plenty of other companies they could join that share the sort of lofty mission OpenAI has evangelized. \u201cNever got so many job offers so quickly in my life,” Jerry Tworek, an OpenAI researcher, posted on the social network X.<\/p>\n Greg Brockman, another OpenAI founder displaced in the chaos, said he\u2019s joining Altman at Microsoft, along with at least three other top researchers. \u201cWe are going to build something new & it will be incredible,” Brockman posted.<\/p>\n Even if Altman\u2019s AI team is granted independence, it\u2019d inevitably come against preexisting AI and research groups inside Microsoft attempting to tackle similar problems. Bloomberg reported in June that some inside Microsoft were displeased that Nadella and Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott outsourced so much AI work to an untested startup in lieu of betting on homegrown projects. It\u2019s possible those tensions could be exacerbated inside Microsoft as various teams vie for resources.<\/p>\n Yet another headache will be Altman\u2019s myriad side hustles, including the controversial crypto endeavor Worldcoin, which seeks to scan the eyeballs of every human on earth, or his recent attempt to raise money for an AI chip company to take on Nvidia Corp. Just last week Microsoft unveiled its own custom-designed chips. Microsoft shareholders surely won\u2019t want their all-star hire competing on this front.<\/p>\n Nadella told Bloomberg TV in an interview Monday that they would \u201cwork through the governance aspects” of Altman\u2019s outside ventures but said he thought Altman would\u2019ve only accepted the job at Microsoft if he \u201cwants to spend his full time” there.<\/p>\n In a series of posts, Altman sought to reassure the world that despite all the drama lately, everyone is still aligned. Altman said he\u2019s optimistic OpenAI and Microsoft can continue to thrive under this new arrangement and provide continuity for their customers. \u201cWe have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before,” he said. \u201cOne team, one mission.”<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear which team Altman was referring to.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \t<\/p>\n Milestone Alert!<\/strong>Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world \ud83c\udf0f<\/span> Click here<\/strong><\/a> to know more.<\/p>\n