Is Sam Altman joining Microsoft or not? CEO Satya Nadella doesn’t even seem to know it.

You’ve probably heard about everything the drama happening with OpenAI over the last few days.

Well, somehow it just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Quick recap of the OpenAI debacle

On Friday evening, the board of directors of OpenAI, a nonprofit organization, announced his ouster. Sam Altman, CEO. The reason is still not confirmed. As a result, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman also left the company. However, investors in the for-profit sector, like Microsoft, were not happy with this surprising news. Less than 24 hours later, OpenAI expressed interest in Altman’s return. This didn’t happen on schedule, so OpenAI announcement a new interim CEO. Therefore, many OpenAI employees threat to walk.

To top it all off, in the early hours of Monday morning, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella do A announcement: Sam Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman were not returning to OpenAI; rather, they are about to join Microsoft.

The tweet may have been deleted

“We are extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, along with their colleagues, will join Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team,” Nadella posted on X while pledging to continue the company’s partnership with OpenAI.

The message of Nadella’s post seems very clear. However, later today, new reports claims that Altman’s departure at Microsoft was not a done deal.

Monday evening, Nadella appeared on CNBC for an interview. Host Jon Fortt asked the Microsoft CEO the question we all ask: “Is Sam Altman going to become a Microsoft employee?”

The tweet may have been deleted

Nadella beats around the bush

Oddly, Nadella couldn’t give a clear answer to a simple question – a question Nadella had the answer for earlier in the day.

“Yeah, I mean… it’s… Friday morning, Jon, I woke up and I was very committed to our uh… you know, our customers, and confident in our technology roadmap and, uh, and really in partnership with OpenAI and really in partnership with Sam,” Nadella replied. “And here, as we’re talking Monday, I guess it’s today, this is the exact same place I’m at.”

Throughout the rest of the interview, when asked about Altman again, Nadella stuck to the basic points of promoting Microsoft’s position in innovative technology and reiterated “l the company’s commitment to OpenAI and Sam”.

Based on this interview, it appears that Altman is not officially a Microsoft employee…yet? Or not at all? Nobody seems to know what’s going on. Not even the CEO of Microsoft, the company that pledged $13 billion to OpenAI.

For now, we’ll all have to continue to monitor the OpenAI situation as it develops.