Microsoft Surrenders OpenAI Board Position

As regulatory scrutiny picks up, the tech giant says it is pleased with the progress OpenAI has made with governance and considers its oversight role unnecessary.

Microsoft has given up its seat on OpenAI’s board, relinquishing a nonvoting position it gained late last year, as regulators intensify their scrutiny of the ties between the tech giant and the start-up behind the chatbot ChatGPT.

Microsoft told OpenAI of its decision in a letter delivered on Tuesday. The tech giant will remain the largest investor in OpenAI, with a 49 percent stake. It has committed to invest $13 billion in the artificial intelligence company that developed ChatGPT, which has become the world’s most popular chatbot because of its ability to answer questions, create images and write software code.

This week, OpenAI also told key investors and business partners that it would begin meeting with them on a quarterly basis, an OpenAI spokesman said. Those meetings will be open to investors, including Microsoft and the venture firms Khosla Ventures and Thrive Capital, as well as Apple, which recently struck a deal to make ChatGPT available on iPhones later this year.

(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The companies have disputed those claims.)

Microsoft joined OpenAI’s board late last year as a nonvoting observer. It came weeks after OpenAI’s board fired and then reinstated Sam Altman as OpenAI’s chief executive. In the wake of that upheaval, OpenAI remade its board, bringing on four new directors.

In the letter to OpenAI, Keith Dolliver, Microsoft’s corporate secretary, said that the company had decided its role on the board was unnecessary because it had “witnessed significant progress from the newly formed board and are confident in the company’s direction.”