Microsoft is already the primary investor and exlusive licensee of OpenAI's GPT-3 technology.
Related questions
Microsoft has essentially acquihired key OpenAI assets, strengthening the case for a future full acquisition.
Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, CEO and cofounders
700/770 OpenAI employees have signed a letter to resign, where Microsoft has jobs waiting for them
MSFT gains access to OpenAI model weights to retrain a model deeply integrated with MSFT products
I've been looking for a market like this. Before Altman was looking to be rehired, I thought this was the only outcome possible; now I think it's the most likely one.
Microsoft can't trust Ilya and the other board members, who made a decision without notifying the 49% investor in the company. Note that this is different from simply consulting with Microsoft and then firing Altman, because that's not what they did. It doesn't matter what those members do from this point forward; they need to go because they lost all trust.
If Altman doesn't return, Microsoft's only choices are to declare OpenAI a sunk cost because they can't count on the company in the future, or to buy out one of the other investors to seize control of the company, fire the board, and merge all the existing employees into a new Microsoft division. I had thought merging would result in a second round of resignations and bad blood, but at this point it's probably the only way the company's intellectual property and talent can be saved.
A merger is also a way to get rid of the now toxic brand name of OpenAI; they can rebrand everything as "Microsoft GPT" and use Microsoft accounts and credentials.
Related: "Will Microsoft file any lawsuit over OpenAI's termination of Sam Altman"
https://manifold.markets/Ziddletwix/will-microsoft-fire-any-lawsuit-ove?r=WmlkZGxldHdpeA
