OpenAI says it will no longer have any observers after Microsoft leaves

Microsoft has stopped being an observer on OpenAI’s board because it is confident in the company’s direction. It will still have a strategic partnership with OpenAI and invest a lot of money in it.

After getting an observer seat on OpenAI‘s board for a few months, Microsoft is now leaving that seat without voting. According to Axios, Microsoft informed OpenAI in a letter on Tuesday that it is confident in the AI company’s direction because it has seen enough progress.

They told us that there would no longer be any observers on the board after this change. That likely puts an end to rumours that Apple will get an observer seat. In a statement, OpenAI said, “We’re grateful to Microsoft for putting their trust in the board and the direction of the company.” We look forward to continuing our successful partnership.”

“Under the direction of CFO Sarah Friar, we are launching a new way to communicate with and work with important strategic partners like Apple and Microsoft, as well as investors like Thrive Capital and Khosla Ventures.”

OpenAI fired Sam Altman last year and later hired him back, making Microsoft an observer. OpenAI reshuffled most of the board, except Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo. Along with D’Aneglo, the new board at OpenAI includes Bret Taylor, who used to be co-CEO of Salesforce; Larry Summers, who used to be Treasury Secretary; Fidji Simo, who is CEO of Instacart;

Nicole Seligman, who used to be an EVP at Sony Corp; Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, who used to be CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Paul Nakasone, who used to be head of the NSA; and Sam Altman.

The company changed a lot last year, and some of its best researchers, like Andrej Karpathy and Ilya Sutskever, have since left. Sutskever started a new AI company called Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI) after he left, and its main goal is to make AI safer.

Microsoft’s OpenAI Stake Under EU Antitrust Scrutiny

Microsoft is no longer an observer, but it still owns 49% of the for-profit OpenAI after investing almost $13 billion. A report from Reuters in April said that antitrust officials in the EU could be against this kind of partnership.

Last month, Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s executive vice president for competition policy, stated that big tech companies shouldn’t use these kinds of investments to control other businesses.

“Over the years, Microsoft has put $13 billion into OpenAI.” “But we need to be careful that these kinds of partnerships don’t turn into a way for one partner to control the other,” she said in a speech.