Emails between more than a dozen Microsoft executives, including CEO Satya Nadella, were shown in court during the Musk v. Altman trial revealing that Microsoft was skeptical of investing in OpenAI in 2018 but worried about pushing the lab into Amazon’s arms. The emails showed Microsoft’s AI team saw “no value in engaging” with OpenAI, the research team thought its own work was “more advanced,” and the PR team didn’t like supporting a group pushing the idea of “machines beating humans.” Microsoft chief technology officer Kevin Scott wrote that he was “highly skeptical of an imminent breakthrough in AGI” and that OpenAI was “treating us like a bucket of undifferentiated GPUs,” but raised concerns about the PR downsides of not funding them and “having them storm off to Amazon in a huff and shit-talk us and Azure on the way out.” Microsoft eventually invested $1B in OpenAI in 2019, and CEO Satya Nadella is set to take the witness stand on Monday.
