The company is leaving its non-voting seat position, months after Microsoft took an observer seat on OpenAI’s board.
In a letter to OpenAI on Tuesday, Microsoft said the company had seen enough progress in AI and was confident in its direction. Axios.
OpenAI said that after this change, there will be no audience in the group. It probably rejects the statements Apple gets an audience spot.
“We are grateful to Microsoft for their confidence in the board and direction of the company, and we look forward to continuing our successful partnership,” OpenAI said in a statement sent to TechCrunch.
“Under the leadership of CFO Sarah Friar, we are establishing a new approach to information and engagement with key strategic partners like Microsoft and Apple — and investors like Thrive Capital and Khosla Ventures.”
Microsoft took an observer position after Sam Altman was fired and rehired by OpenAI last year, with most of the team — bar Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo — replaced. OpenAI’s new team includes former Salesforce co-CEO Brett Taylor, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Instacart CEO Fiji Simo, former Sony Corp EVP Nicole Seligman, former Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former NSA chief Paul Nagasone and Sam Altman in addition to D’Aneclow.
Due to changes at OpenAI last year, some of the best researchers like Andrej Karpati and Ilya Satskever left the company. After he left, Chutzkaver founded a new AI company Secure Super Intelligence Inc. (SSI), focuses on improving AI security.
Despite Microsoft exiting the audience space, the company still owns 49% of for-profit OpenAI after investing nearly $13 billion. This type of partnership would draw the ire of antitrust regulators in the EU A Reuters report published in April.
Last month, Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s executive vice-president for competition policy, said such investments should not become a vehicle for big tech companies to control other companies.
Microsoft has invested $13 billion in OpenAI over the years. But we must ensure that such partnerships do not become a disguise for one partner to gain controlling influence over the other,” he said in a speech.
Alex Haffner, a rival partner at UK-based firm Fladgate, said Microsoft was careful not to subject its investments to too much regulatory scrutiny.
“It’s hard to conclude that Microsoft’s decision was heavily influenced by current competitive/antitrust studies of its (and other major technology players’) influence over emerging AI players like Open AI,” Hafner told TechCrunch via email.
