Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) boss Satya Nadella has suggested the company’s hiring of Sam Altman is still up in the air as he could return to OpenAI, but that governance at the artificial intelligence (AI) startup “has to change”.
After Altman’s shock departure on Friday he was quickly offered a move to OpenAI's $2.8 trillion main investor to lead a new AI research team.
But Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman are ready and able to return if the board allows it, according to a report overnight from The Verge, which cited multiple sources.
Under pressure from the threat of a mass staff exodus earlier on Monday, it would now need two of the three remaining directors to change their minds or step aside themselves for Altman and Brockman to be restored.
“We are all going to work together some way or other, and I’m so excited,” Altman said in a reiterated tweet.
Nadella, whose company has invested $2 billion in OpenAI and committed up to $10 billion but does not have a seat on the board, told CNBC, “it’s very clear that something has to change around the governance” and “we’ll have a good dialogue with their board on that”.
Asked if Altman and other OpenAI staff would join Microsoft, he said “that is for the OpenAI board and management and employees to choose”.
He added: “We chose to explicitly partner with OpenAI and we want to continue to do so, and obviously that depends on the people at OpenAI staying there or coming to Microsoft, so I’m open to both options.”
He also told Bloomberg that Microsoft will “definitely want some governance changes. This idea that changes happen without being in the loop is not good.”