Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the stand in the Musk v. Altman trial on Monday, testifying that Elon Musk never contacted him with concerns that Microsoft's investments in OpenAI were violating any special terms or commitments. Nadella defended the company's $13B+ in investments in OpenAI (including a $1B investment in 2019, $2B in 2021, and $10B in 2023) as commercial rather than charitable donations, and said he was “very proud” that Microsoft took the risk to invest when “no one else was willing” to bet on OpenAI. Nadella also addressed Altman's 2023 firing, calling the board's handling of the situation “amateur city” and saying he was “pretty surprised” by the decision, though he denied demanding that the board reinstate Altman as CEO. The trial also brought OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever to the stand, who testified that Google had offered to pay him as much as $6M a year to try to keep him from leaving for OpenAI, and that he expressed concerns about Altman's behavior because he “didn't want [the startup] to be destroyed.”
