Microsoft and OpenAI renegotiate investment deal: Report

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Tech firm Microsoft and synthetic intelligence agency OpenAI are reportedly in talks to renegotiate the funding deal between the AI agency and Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s greatest monetary backer.

In response to a report from the Monetary Occasions, Microsoft might surrender a portion of its fairness in OpenAI for continued entry to the AI firm’s merchandise and fashions past 2030, when among the authentic phrases of a deal signed between the 2 corporations expire.

Microsoft has invested over $13 billion into OpenAI since 2019, when it first acquired an curiosity within the synthetic intelligence agency.

Microsoft, Elon Musk, OpenAI
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman takes the rostrum on the White Home in January 2025 to debate AI infrastructure funding in america. Supply: The White House

OpenAI is trying to restructure the corporate to shift its focus to profit-making. Nonetheless, these plans have met with pushback from co-founders like Elon Musk and early traders.

The deal between OpenAI and Microsoft is crucial to OpenAI’s restructuring and the way forward for the US-based AI startup firm. Advancing synthetic intelligence has additionally change into a key policy objective for global leaders because the AI arms race heats up.

Associated: OpenAI to stay nonprofit, scrap proposed overhaul

OpenAI faces staunch pushback in opposition to for-profit shift

OpenAI was based as a non-profit entity in 2015 by businessman Elon Musk, tech entrepreneur Sam Altman, and AI researcher Ilya Sutskever.

Nonetheless, in 2024, the corporate started mulling a company restructuring that might convert the corporate from a non-profit entity to a for-profit company.

Elon Musk has been one of many biggest critics of the plan, calling into query the legality of the proposed shift in a November 2024 authorized filing.

Microsoft, Elon Musk, OpenAI
Elon Musk and others file litigation in opposition to OpenAI to dam its conversion to a for-profit firm. Supply: Court Listener

The tech billionaire additionally blasted the corporate’s concentrate on closed-source software program improvement, which he mentioned was not the unique goal of OpenAI.

“OpenAI was really began and was meant to be open supply. I named it ‘OpenAI’ after open supply, now it’s, in reality, closed supply. It must be renamed tremendous closed supply AI for max revenue AI,” Musk told an viewers on the New York Occasions DealBook Summit.

In February 2025, a bunch of traders led by Musk submitted a $97.4 billion bid to take over OpenAI. Nonetheless, the deal was flatly rejected by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Extra not too long ago, on Might 5, OpenAI announced it was abandoning its shift to a purely for-profit mannequin and is selecting to shift to a public profit company — a profit-driven construction with authorized obligations to meet social or public items goals — managed by a non-profit entity.

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