{"id":69303,"date":"2026-05-13T11:54:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T11:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/69303\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T11:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T11:54:23","slug":"it-was-sort-of-amateur-city-satya-nadella-speaks-about-openai-and-sam-altman-ceo-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/69303\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It was sort of amateur city’, Satya Nadella speaks about OpenAI and Sam Altman CEO drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the stand in a federal court in California as part of the ongoing trial against OpenAI by tech billionaire Elon Musk<\/a>. This marks week 3 of the trial. In his testimony, Nadella claimed that OpenAI executives did not give him clear reasons why they had sacked Sam Altman as CEO in 2023.<\/p>\n

In November 2023, Sam Altman was removed as OpenAI CEO by the startup\u2019s board, stating that Sam had not been “consistently candid” in his communications. If you want to learn more about how Altman reacted to this news, you can click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Satya Nadella wasn\u2019t happy with OpenAI\u2019s explanations<\/p>\n

Following this news, the Microsoft CEO claimed that he was “pretty surprised” by the decision. Do note that Microsoft was an early investor in OpenAI, going all the way back to 2019. In October last year, Microsoft disclosed that it held about 27 per cent of OpenAI’s for-profit unit, valued at around $135 billion.<\/p>\n

Satya Nadella said in court that the language regarding Sam\u2019s firing \u201cjust didn\u2019t sort of suffice, because this is the CEO of a company that we are invested in, and we\u2019re deeply partnered with.\u201d Satya Nadella added, \u201cAnd so, I felt that they could have explained to me what are the incidents or what is the detail behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, when Nadella tried to contact OpenAI executives to understand what had exactly happened, he failed to get convincing answers. He stated, \u201cIt was sort of amateur city, as far as I\u2019m concerned.\u201d Nadella also mentioned that he suspected jealousy or poor communication may have been involved.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that after Altman was told to leave OpenAI, it was Satya Nadella who announced that Microsoft was hiring Sam and former OpenAI president Greg Brockman<\/a>. Though OpenAI ultimately reinstated Altman as hundreds of OpenAI employees threatened to join Microsoft.<\/p>\n

Did Elon Musk contact Satya Nadella on OpenAI investment?<\/p>\n

Another key part of the trial revolves around Microsoft. Last month, Elon Musk testified, stating that he was concerned about Microsoft potentially taking over OpenAI with its investments. He stated, \u201cI was concerned they were really trying to steal the charity.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, on Monday, Satya Nadella claimed that he was not contacted by Musk regarding such fears. When asked if Elon Musk knew how to contact him, the Microsoft CEO said, \u201cWe have each other’s phone numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Musk\u2019s lawsuit against OpenAI, Microsoft is also named as a defendant, with the tech billionaire accusing it of aiding and abetting an alleged breach of charitable trust.<\/p>\n

Microsoft feared becoming the IBM of AI?<\/p>\n

During the trial, Elon Musk\u2019s attorney, Steven Molo, asked Nadella about an email from 2022 which he had sent to Microsoft executives. In the email, Satya wrote, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be IBM and OpenAI to be Microsoft.\u201d<\/p>\n

To give you some context, In 1980, IBM signed a non-exclusive agreement to distribute Microsoft\u2019s DOS operating system on IBM personal computers. This deal essentially allowed Microsoft to distribute its DOS system to other PC marks, giving it a lead in the operating system space.<\/p>\n

Molo asked, \u201cEventually Microsoft grew to be a much more prominent and important company than IBM, correct?\u201d Satya Nadella replied, \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI co-founder says he didn\u2019t want startup to be destroyed<\/p>\n

After Nadella\u2019s testimony, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever took to the stand. Sutskever had declined a $6 million offer from Google \u2013 where he was working at the time \u2013 to join OpenAI in 2015.<\/p>\n

Ilya was one of the board members who had voted to remove Sam Altman from the role of CEO at OpenAI. In his testimony, he said that he made the call after what he described as a pattern of lying and pitting other OpenAI executives against each other.<\/p>\n

Though Sutskever explained that he changed his decision after he missed an offer from Microsoft to hire every OpenAI employee following Altman\u2019s removal. In the same time period, 95 per cent of OpenAI employees signed a letter threatening to quit if Altman was not reinstated as CEO.<\/p>\n

Following these events, Ilya Sutskever decided to support Altman\u2019s return. He added, “I felt that, had I not done this, the company would be destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor followed Ilya on the stand. He reflected upon the \u201cdire\u201d period when Altman was removed as the startup\u2019s CEO. Taylor is expected to conclude his testimony on Tuesday. Sam Altman is also scheduled to testify the same day.<\/p>\n

– Ends<\/p>\n

Published By: <\/p>\n

Armaan Agarwal<\/p>\n

Published On: <\/p>\n

May 12, 2026 09:32 IST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the stand in a federal court in California as part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[40232,26809,11816,33591,31585,613,36085,27556,581,585,40233],"class_list":{"0":"post-69303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-satya-nadella","8":"tag-charitable-trust","9":"tag-elon-musk-lawsuit","10":"tag-ilya-sutskever","11":"tag-microsoft-investment","12":"tag-musk-v-altman-trial","13":"tag-openai","14":"tag-openai-board","15":"tag-openai-trial","16":"tag-sam-altman","17":"tag-satya-nadella","18":"tag-satya-nadella-openai-sam-altman-ceo-removal-legal-trial-microsoft-elon-musk-testimony-2023-ceo-firing-openai-board-lawsuit-ai-industry-leadership-conflict"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116567137568465431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}