Everything is still up in the air about the current status of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Sam Altman was fired by board members on Friday before trying unsuccessfully to be reinstated over the weekend. Microsoft hired him and several other OpenAI employees to join the company to form a new artificial intelligence team, but then a majority of OpenAI employees (more than 95%) signed a letter asking the board to bring Altman back or they might resign.
On Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella decided to publicly take questions from the business media. In a video interview with Bloomberg, reporter Emily Chang asked Nadella whether Altman told him he wanted to return to OpenAI, but he didn't answer directly, saying:
We really want to work with OpenAI and we really want to work with Sam. So in terms of where Sam is going, he's working with Microsoft, that was true last Friday, that's true today, and I absolutely believe that's true tomorrow.
When Nadella was asked in an interview with CNBC if it was clear whether Altman would return to OpenAI and whether all these employees would join him or join Microsoft, Nadella also dodged the question:
This choice is up to the OpenAI board, management and employees. I think, at this moment, I just want to know, what do I care about? All I care about is just making sure that we can continue to innovate, and as I said, I feel very, very confident that Microsoft, frankly, is more than capable of doing that on its own. But we have clearly chosen to work with OpenAI, and we want to continue to do that, and that obviously depends on whether OpenAI employees stay there or join Microsoft, so I'm open to both options.
Nadella also said in an interview with Bloomberg that he was not aware of any wrongdoing by Altman that led the OpenAI board to fire him on Friday.
Bloomberg reported that in a memo sent to OpenAI employees, Anna Makanju, the company’s vice president of global affairs, said that remaining board members and current interim CEO Emmett Shear are still in some form of talks with Altman. Those talks should continue later today.