• Sam Altman has been scooped up by Microsoft after his firing from OpenAI, says Microsoft’s CEO.
• Altman, and other OpenAI founder Greg Brockman, who left OpenAI after Altman’s firing, will join Microsoft to lead a new “AI research team.”
• Microsoft says it will continue to work with OpenAI in the interim.

As former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was ousted from the company he co-founded over the weekend and amid the appointment of Twitch CEO Emmet Shear as interim boss, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has just announced that Altman, and OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman will join Microsoft to “to lead a new advanced AI research team.”

According to Nadella, who published the announcement on X, Microsoft will continue to back OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, despite the departure of its founders. Microsoft is one of OpenAI’s largest investors.

“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,” said Nadella, whom different reports have indicated was “furious” by the ousting of Altman by the OpenAI board of directors.

“We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI’s new leadership team and working with them,” he added.

According to a statement from OpenAI, Altman was fired as CEO on 17th November because he was not “consistently candid” with the board and this led to the board losing its confidence in Altman’s “ability to continue leading OpenAI.”

In the next three days, the board quickly appointed Mira Murati as interim CEO, but quickly removed Murati due to the transitional boss being deemed too close to Altman’s camp, alongside a host of other employees at the generative AI leader.

The board then appointed the chief executive of streaming leader Twitch, Emmett Shear as interim CEO as the board looks for a more permanent replacement.

No word yet on what exactly Altman and Brockman will be doing at Microsoft, other than working on “advanced” AI research. Nadella says that Microsoft will be moving quickly to provide them with enough resources to ensure their success.

[Image – Photo by Matthew Manuel on Unsplash]