Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella defends OpenAIs for-profit standing, shares past nerves over Altman ouster | Latest Tech News
OAKLAND, CALIF. — Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella defended OpenAI’s pivot to for-profit standing and mentioned his company’s hopes for a juicy return on its investment during Monday testimony in Elon Musk’s swimsuit against the AI giant.
“Without a for-profit entity, it would be hard for OpenAI to pursue its mission,” Nadella said in federal court in Oakland, Calif.
Musk’s attorney Steven Molo hit him with sharp questions throughout his testimony, which got here in the third week of the trial over Musk’s allegations that OpenAI betrayed its founding contract by placing industrial gain over developing AI for the benefit of humankind.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella arrives at federal court on Monday. Getty Images
As half of his swimsuit, the Tesla titan has accused Microsoft of aiding OpenAI’s alleged breach of charitable trust when it turned into a for-profit.
Microsoft planning paperwork from 2023 shared in court Monday confirmed the company hoped to reap a cool $92 billion return on its initial $13 billion investment in OpenAI.
The huge valuation of $852 billion the AI giant reached in March places Microsoft’s stake in the company at around $135 billion.
“It’s worked out very, very, very well for Microsoft, hasn’t it?” Molo requested, drawing a response in the affirmative from Nadella.
Monday’s testimony also touched on a big theme from last week — the controversial ouster of OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman in November 2023. He returned to the position days later.
Nadella said he was involved by the initial firing, explaining that he promised to help potential new management but didn’t need Altman to go off and be a part of a rival, either.
“That was obviously very concerning to me,” said the Microsoft maven. “Given all of that competition, I just wanted to make sure we could hang on to the band that created all this technology.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has challenged OpenAI for altering it’s for-profit construction. Getty Images
The Microsoft-OpenAI partnership has seen its ups and downs, with the software program giant getting a 27% possession stake in the startup following OpenAI’s restructuring last yr.
Nadella asserted Monday he was “very proud” that Microsoft took the risk to invest in OpenAI when “no one else was willing” to guess on it.
Still, Microsoft executives including Nadella had been skeptical about pumping capital into OpenAI as far back as 2018, according to emails shown in court last week. Several Microsoft execs said that they had made visits to OpenAI and weren’t seeing imminent breakthroughs in developing synthetic normal intelligence — thought of a holy grail in the AI race.
OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever also testified on Monday. He said he never promised Musk — who’s in search of up to $180 billion in damages and a court order for OpenAI to unwind its for-profit standing — that the company would stay a non-profit.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has confronted Musk’s wrath over the company. REUTERS
“The mission of OpenAI is larger than a non-profit or for-profit structure,” Sutskever said.
He said he recalled Musk wished to own more than half of the for-profit entity of OpenAI.
“I found it to be aggressive,” Sutskever said, including that Musk had obligations in other corporations that he thought would distract him. “I found it difficult.”
On Altman’s 2023 ouster, Sutskever said he was “not excited” about the prospect of a merger with other corporations including arch-rival Anthropic in the chaotic days following Altman’s firing.
He acknowledged that former OpenAI board member Helen Toner expressed the view that “Allowing OpenAI to be destroyed would be consistent with its mission.”
In video testimony performed in court last week, Toner detailed just how close the company got here to a shotgun merger with Anthropic in the wake of Altman’s firing.
US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers requested Sutskever if he may quantify the growth of OpenAI’s technology during its early years.
The pc scientist paused for a second and then replied, “It’s the difference between an ant and a cat,” drawing laughter from the courtroom.
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