Yahoo Finance Microsoft CEO says Sam Altman will be joining Microsoft
(Reuters) — Following a surprise ouster, OpenAI co-founder and former CEO Sam Altman is joining Microsoft (MSFT) as the head of artificial intelligence research.
The ChatGPT maker's former president Greg Brockman and other colleagues will join the team, Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella said in a post on Monday to social media platform X.
"We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success," he wrote.
Microsoft shares rose 1.5% in pre-market trading after the news.
The developments come less than a year after OpenAI kicked off the generative AI frenzy with the launch of viral chatbot ChatGPT and bagged Microsoft as an investor, among other big names.
The ousting of co-founder Altman as CEO by the OpenAI board on Friday was followed by efforts to reinstate him, amid concerns that his departure could lead to a mass exodus of talent and hit an upcoming $86 billion share sale.
"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 wrote.
He also appeared to confirm Emmett Shear's reported appointment as the new OpenAI CEO, saying they are "looking forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI's new leadership team and working with them."
The shakeup is not the first at OpenAI, which was launched in 2015. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a co-founder of the non-profit, was once its co-chair, and in 2020 other executives departed, going on to found competitor Anthropic, which claims to have a greater focus on AI safety.
(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru, Editing by Louise Heavens)
