Microsoft Corp. targeted a US$92 billion return from its large early investments in OpenAI, a landmark arrangement that helped usher in the current AI era. The goal was included in Microsoft planning documents from early 2023 and disclosed Monday in court. The investments 'worked out well because we took the risk,' chief executive Satya Nadella testified to a jury hearing Elon Musk's high-profile case against OpenAI and Microsoft in federal court in Oakland, California.
Investment Details
The world's largest software maker invested about US$13 billion in the ChatGPT maker through early 2023. Since then, OpenAI's valuation has skyrocketed to US$852 billion by the end of March. As of October, Microsoft's stake in the company was valued at about US$135 billion. As part of OpenAI's restructuring last year, Microsoft received a 27 per cent ownership stake in the startup.
Legal Context
In a 2024 lawsuit, Elon Musk accused fellow OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman of abandoning the startup's founding mission as a nonprofit to benefit humanity when it took steps to operate as a for-profit business. The world's richest person alleged that Microsoft aided that betrayal. Microsoft and OpenAI have squabbled over the terms of their partnership and over time come into more direct competition with one another.
OpenAI, Altman, Brockman and Microsoft have all denied wrongdoing, saying Musk's claims are baseless harassment aimed at boosting his own AI startup, xAI, that launched in 2023.
