Microsoft has assured OpenAI employees that there are positions available for them in the company’s new subsidiary if they choose to leave the startup. The news comes after a large group of OpenAI workers threatened to quit following the dismissal of co-founder Sam Altman and expressed interest in joining Microsoft if the board of directors did not resign.
The employees have criticized the board’s decision to remove Altman from his position, with more than 500 workers supporting their sentiment expressed in a letter signed by 770 OpenAI staff members. The company’s senior officials, including Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever and top executive Mira Murati, have also spoken out against the move.
OpenAI has appointed a new CEO, Emmett Shear, despite pressure from Microsoft and other investors to bring back Altman. However, Shear has denied reports that Altman was fired over security concerns related to AI technology use.
Microsoft has invested over $10 billion in OpenAI and is committed to its partnership with the startup. The company is confident in its product roadmap and remains competitive with other companies such as Google and Meta in developing AI-based applications like ChatGPT. These platforms rely on large amounts of data to generate human-like language answers and manipulate images or create sounds and expressions.
