Elon Musk leads reaction to Microsoft boss Satya Nadella hiring ousted OpenAI boss Sam Altman saying ‘Now they have to use teams’ as social media explodes over stealth move: ‘Pulling this off before the market opens is crazy!’
- READ MORE: Microsoft hires Sam Altman after his shock sacking by OpenAI
Elon Musk has weighed in on the surprise hire of OpenAI boss Sam Altman by Microsoft, quipping that ‘Now they will have to use Teams!’ as the tech world has gone into overdrive following the announcement.
Social media has erupted with reaction to the bombshell news, which was shared by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on X, formerly Twitter, before the markets opened on Monday morning.
Altman helped to turn OAI into a profitable business and oversaw development of the cutting edge ChatGPT system, and now many have suggested his ousting from the firm could mark the start of a brain drain, with others expected to follow.
The decision to onboard Altman, his colleague Greg Brockman, and others from OAI has been hailed as a bold move by Nadella, who has made no secret of his ambition to push Microsoft ahead of its competitors in the field of Artificial Intelligence.
Many online have expressed their approval at the stealth move by Nadella – with the Microsoft boss being labelled as the ultimate CEO, a ‘4D chess player’, and compared to Succession’s Logan Roy due to his savvy business sense.
Sam Altman helped to turn OAI into a profitable business and oversaw development of the cutting edge ChatGPT system
Commentators online have suggested Nadella has cleverly taken on the top talent from OAI without pumping more investment into the firm.
Some have called him ‘the smartest’ while others applauded his ‘incredible’ stealth move, with one sharing a meme of an UNO reverse card to highlight what they see as his astounding success.
One X user wrote: ‘Microsoft just acquired OpenAI without acquiring OpenAI. And made it fully for-profit without making it fully for-profit. Satya plays 4D Chess.’
Tech podcaster Jason Calacanis shared his prediction on X, declaring that the dramatic move means it is now ‘anyone’s game to win’ in the world of AI, which OAI had been dominating.
He wrote: ‘OpenAI is going to collapse Microsoft, Google, and anyone with a budget is going to raid what’s left of the team that doesn’t go with Sam.
‘The entire poker table has been tossed over… chips, drinks, cards, players strewn everywhere — complete chaos. And chaos is a ladder It’s anyone’s game now… this implosion will great for the industry… it’s on!’
Another X user went even further, suggesting that the shakeup marks a huge turning point in human history.
‘Somehow in this epic meltdown, Satya swoops in, wins it all, and wins with grace. I’m floored,’ Dr Jim Fan wrote.
‘OpenAI was invincible until Friday. Now Microsoft will fully own an in-house GPT-4 in ~9 months, leverage its massive distribution power to spin the biggest data flywheel ever, collect huge profits, and scale the most powerful intelligence on Azure – while doing all this without any non-profit governance whatsoever.
‘I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the course of humanity changed abruptly and fundamentally on 11/20/23.’
The Stanford AI scientist then pointed out that Microsoft scooping Altman was probably ‘not at all what the coup intended’.
There were also suggestions that the hire was part of an effort on Nadella’s part to make good on his promise to take on the search engine giant that is Google.
One X user musing that ‘this could be the end of not just OpenAI but Google.’
They suggested that the pair’s influence could mean ‘we’ll all be using Bing Chat in the next 2-3 years,’ referring to Microsoft’s less popular search engine.
In an interview earlier this year, the Microsoft boss described Google, one of his company’s main competitors, as an ‘800-pound gorilla’.
But, he said that with Microsoft’s ‘innovation’, it could take the tech behemoth on and make Google ‘dance’. Now, as X users suggested, the move is likely to be ruffling some feathers in the tech world.
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