Satya Nadella says Microsoft 'will definitely have a place for all AI talent' in the wake of OpenAI drama

• Satya Nadella says Microsoft welcomes AI talent who want to leave OpenAI.
• "We will definitely have a place for all AI talent to come here," he said on Kara Swisher's podcast.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says his company is open to taking in AI talent who want to leave OpenAI following the ouster of its former CEO Sam Altman.

Altman's abrupt departure led to a weekend of drama, which ended with him and former OpenAI president Greg Brockman joining Microsoft to head its new advanced AI research team on Monday. Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Twitch, was named the new interim CEO of OpenAI on the same day.

But the chaos isn't over yet. Nearly all of OpenAI's staff members have threatened to quit unless the board resigns and Altman is reinstated as CEO, according to a letter signed by hundreds of employees.

And Nadella, it appears, is ready for that exact mass-quitting scenario.

"We will definitely have a place for all AI talent to come here and move forward on the mission, and we will be supportive of whoever remains even at OpenAI or whatever," Nadella told journalist Kara Swisher on an episode of her podcast, which aired on Monday.

Nadella isn't the only tech executive looking to benefit from OpenAI's woes.

On Monday, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff promised to match the contracts of OpenAI researchers who resigned to join Salesforce.

"Salesforce will match any OpenAI researcher who has tendered their resignation full cash & equity OTE to immediately join our Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team under Silvio Savarese," Benioff wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Representatives for Microsoft and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.