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- Satya Nadella said Sam Altman will be working with Microsoft no matter where he ends up working.
- On Monday, the Microsoft CEO announced he hired Altman after the former OpenAI CEO's shock firing.
- Altman is reportedly considering returning to OpenAI if the board that fired him steps down.
On Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced he was hiring Sam Altman. The move came after a tumultuous weekend in Silicon Valley that saw the former OpenAI CEO ousted from the artificial intelligence startup.
Nadella also snapped up former Open AI president Greg Brockman, writing in a post on X that the two AI experts will be leading a "new advanced AI research team" at Microsoft.
However, both Altman and Brockman are considering returning to OpenAI if board members decide to step down, The Verge reported on Monday, citing multiple unnamed sources.
Still, Nadella told Bloomberg TV on Monday it doesn't matter where Altman ends up working — because "irrespective of where Sam is, he's working with Microsoft."
Microsoft is an investor in OpenAI, pouring in $10 billion into the AI startup.
The tech giant is also seen as the big winner in the weekend drama at OpenAI, since a new AI venture headed by Altman and Brockman could be a competitor to OpenAI.
Nadella endorsed Altman in his interview with Bloomberg TV, saying he is confident in his leadership. He also said he doesn't know why OpenAI's board fired Altman.
"I have not been told about anything," he told the media outlet.
"The board has not talked about anything that Sam did other than some breakdown in communications and I was not directly told by anyone from their board about any issues," he said.
OpenAI only told Microsoft about Altman's ouster a few minutes before its announcement, sources told Business Insider's Kali Hays and Ashley Stewart.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.