Musk v. Altman: Satya Nadella says Elon Musk never contacted him with concerns that Microsoft's investments in OpenAI violated any special terms or commitments
internal emails revealed in courtNBC Bay Area:OpenAI trial live updates: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella takes the standSamriddhi Srivastava /People Matters:Why Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is being called to testify in Elon Musk's OpenAI lawsuitThe Economic Times:Microsoft boss Satya Nadella to testify on his role in OpenAI's founding
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Context & Ripple Effects
The trial coverage has exposed Microsoft’s long-running strategic calculus around OpenAI: executives reportedly worried in 2018 that withholding support could drive OpenAI toward Amazon. Subsequent testimony put the scale of Microsoft’s combined investment and infrastructure spending at more than $100 billion.
Against that backdrop, Nadella’s testimony addresses whether Musk raised alleged commitment-related objections directly with Microsoft, adding to a record that also includes disputes over OpenAI safety practices and claims involving xAI.
First-order effects
Nadella’s account gives Microsoft and OpenAI evidence to contest any assertion that Musk directly alerted Microsoft that its OpenAI backing breached special terms or commitments.
The testimony increases the importance of contemporaneous emails and witness accounts in defining what Microsoft knew, and when, about the disputed arrangements.
Second-order effects
The case places Microsoft’s OpenAI relationship under sharper scrutiny as both a capital commitment and an infrastructure commitment, rather than treating it as a conventional arms-length partnership.
Rival cloud and AI providers may find the disclosed concern about OpenAI potentially moving toward Amazon salient: access to leading AI labs remains tied to cloud-provider alliances and the leverage those alliances create.
Third-order effects
If litigation continues to surface internal partnership records, major AI alliances may face more pressure to document governance, notice processes, and the separation between commercial support and organizational commitments.
The broader issue is whether heavily funded AI labs can preserve distinct commitments and governance while relying on one provider for large-scale capital and infrastructure; this testimony alone does not resolve that question.
The trend: This is one data point in the growing legal and governance test of whether strategic cloud investment in AI labs can coexist with the labs’ stated institutional commitments.
@techreview Satya Nadella says he never demanded OpenAI to reinstate Sam Altman when he was briefly fired in 2023. The board's explanation that Altman was “not candid” wasn't sufficient, says Nadella, so he sought “clarity from the OpenAI board.” And he was “very worried that the…
@jhenryphoto good nadella burn in an internal email: “I dont want [microsoft] to be IBM and OpenAI to be Microsoft” re: he wanted to make sure that MSFT was actually getting OpenAI's intellectual property and not getting left in the dust
MSFT exec says MSFT has “recognized $9 billion in revenue” throughout the total life of their partnership with openAI. that is a figure that comes from their 20 percent revenue share. and that's after, i think, accounting for their 13b investment and Azure cloud $$$ expenses
Nadella, who was yanked out of a meeting when Altman was fired in 2023: “I was pretty surprised to say the least. b/c there was no reach out to me from the board, which i thought would be a pretty obvious thing to do.” customers started beating down his door, too
really good nadella line re: OpenAI intellectual property: “Right now we are a very think layer on top of nvidia and all the IP is with OpenAI.” “If we are going to spend this kind of money and not have control of destiny, it makes no sense.”
@techreview Asked whether OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary breached its nonprofit mission, Nadella says: “the nonprofit approved the creation of the for-profit entity, so they could continue to pursue the mission.” He adds: “If the pie became larger, the nonprofit would benefit as …
@techreview Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella takes the stand in a black suit and sky blue tie. Since 2019, Microsoft has made investments in OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary and provided supercomputers for AI model training, in return for a license to use OpenAI's technology in developi…
@techreview “I'm very proud of the fact that we took the risk when no one else was willing to sponsor this fledgling lab,” says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, referring to OpenAI, and “start all the innovation that the industry has today.”
@techreview Satya Nadella says when he met Elon Musk in 2015, he knew that Elon was concerned about AI safety and didn't want “AI being cornered by one company.”
google offered ilya sutskever $6 million a year to stay at google instead of leaving to found openai, which he said was a “staggering amount of money” at the time (and i would agree with that) now sutskever is worth multiple billions on paper due to OAI equity
@techreview Ilya Sutskever and the rest of the OpenAI board briefly fired Sam Altman as CEO in 2023. “This kind of environment, where the executives [don't] exactly have the correct information, makes the environment not conducive to attaining any difficult, grand goal,” such as …
sutskever does not seem like a witness that OpenAI side loves (Musk side is questioning him now) notes that the superalignment team was dissolved and that safety was was “the most important work for the long term” musk counsel wants to establish OAI is not serious about safety
i've been eagle-eyed for openai founder stake details in the musk/altman trial, which have long been a mystery. today we learned that @ilyasut's stake is worth about $7B, up from $5B last november. (last week we learned @gdb's stake is worth about $30B. https://www.bloomberg.com/…
🚨BREAKING: Ilya just confirmed under oath what he saw: Sam lying. And he confirmed that he thought it was appropriate to fire Altman for it. And that he had been concerned for about Sam for a long time. 100% confirming what I had been saying since the week of the firing.
@techreview Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever takes the stand in a light blue shirt, with an intense, unblinking gaze. “We discussed lots of outlandish ideas very often,” he says, recalling his conversations with Elon Musk at OpenAI in its early days.