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Microsoft has been making its GitHub subsidiary more dependent on the company’s own Azure public cloud.

That lines up with Microsoft’s desire to increase the use of Azure, whose revenue was growing 40% in the second quarter, faster than any other major product category the company discloses every three months.

At the same time, it must be careful not to break commitments it made at the time of the $7.5 billion GitHub acquisition in 2018. Otherwise, some developers wary of Microsoft’s past behavior might not want to use GitHub to store their software code.

In the late 1990s, the U.S. Department of Justice argued that Microsoft had illegally required device makers to commit to including the Internet Explorer browser on every PC they shipped with the Windows 95 operating system. In the settlement of the landmark antitrust case, Microsoft agreed to a ban on pacts mandating exclusive support of its software, among other changes.

When GitHub was a standalone company, software developers saw it as a neutral ground where they could house their software projects and then run the code on the market-leading Amazon Web Services cloud or any other computing environment. Then Microsoft announced its plan to buy GitHub. Some developers objected, and over 1,900 people signed a petition to block the deal.

“Microsoft likely acquired GitHub so it could more closely integrate it with Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and ultimately help drive compute usage for Azure,” Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder and CEO of GitHub competitor GitLab, was quoted as saying in a company blog post.

On the day Microsoft announced the GitHub deal, Microsoft published a blog post from its CEO, Satya Nadella, that communicated Microsoft’s intent.

“Going forward, GitHub will remain an open platform, which any developer can plug into and extend,” Nadella wrote. “Developers will continue to be able to use the programming languages, tools and operating systems of their choice for their projects — and will still be able to deploy their code on any cloud and any device.”

The company would also speed up the ability for developers at large companies to use Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure, Nadella wrote.

Some developers worried that Microsoft would adjust GitHub so that running code on Azure would be the easiest approach.

But Microsoft has employed more subtle tactics.

Instead of pushing developers to run their code on Azure, GitHub has simply introduced new products and features, many of which are built on Azure. So when developers use GitHub, Azure is increasingly the backbone.

For instance, GitHub Copilot, a tool that helps developers complete their coding projects line by line, uses Azure, said Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s executive vice president for cloud and enterprise, in an interview with CNBC. The GitHub Actions service for building and deploying code and the Codespaces cloud-based development environment operate in Azure, too, Guthrie said.

“GitHub, historically, I could say, has run in their own data centers, not actually on a public cloud, and a lot of the new features of GitHub are using our public cloud,” Guthrie said.

That means the GitHub acquisition can increase Azure usage — even if customers don’t realize it — and Microsoft can say that GitHub continues to allow people to run their code on any server.

Under Nadella, Microsoft has transformed other companies it has bought into Azure users. In 2019 LinkedIn announced plans to move the business social network to Azure, and in 2020 Microsoft said Mojang Studios, publisher of the popular Minecraft video game, would stop using Amazon’s AWS.

“There is a lot of great stuff we’re doing, but at the same time, we’re being super careful, obviously, because you know, GitHub has a gestalt of its own, and so we’re making sure — and I think we’ve done a really good job of that — sort of being able to integrate all of those features in a very native way inside of GitHub,” Guthrie said.

In September Microsoft informed investors that its closely watched Azure and Other Cloud Services revenue growth number each quarter would expand to include “additional GitHub cloud revenue now delivered via our datacenter infrastructure.” Until now that revenue has fallen under the company’s Server Products category.

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Winklevoss-founded Gemini reportedly prices IPO at $28 per share, valuing the crypto exchange at $3.3 billion

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Winklevoss-founded Gemini reportedly prices IPO at  per share, valuing the crypto exchange at .3 billion

Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss (L-R), creators of crypto exchange Gemini Trust Co., on stage at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention, a cryptocurrency conference held at the Mana Convention Center in Wynwood in Miami, Florida, on June 4, 2021.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

Gemini Space Station, the crypto company founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, priced its initial public offering at $28 per share late Thursday, according to Bloomberg.

A person familiar with the offering told the news service that the company priced the offering above its expected range of $24 to $26, which would value the company at $3.3 billion.

Since Gemini capped the value of the offering at $425 million, 15.2 million shares were sold, according to the report. That was a measure of high demand for the crypto company, which had initially marketed 16.67 million shares. Earlier this week, it increased its proposed price range from between $17 and $19 apiece.

A Gemini spokesperson could not confirm the report.

The company and the selling stockholders granted its underwriters — led by and Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley — a 30-day option to sell an additional 452,807 and 380,526 shares, respectively, per the registration form. Gemini stock will trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol “GEMI.”

Up to 30% of the shares offered will be reserved for retail investors through Robinhood, SoFi, Hong Kong-based Futu Securities, Singapore’s Moomoo Financial, Webull and other platforms.

Gemini, which primarily operates as a cryptocurrency exchange, was founded by the Winklevoss brothers in 2014 and holds more than $21 billion of assets on its platform as of the end of July.

Initial trading will give the market a sense of how long it can keep the crypto IPO party going. Circle Internet and Bullish had successful listings, but there has been a recent consolidation in the prices of blue chip cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether. Also, in contrast to those companies’ profitability, Gemini has reported widening losses, especially in 2025. Per its registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gemini posted a net loss of $159 million in 2024, and in the first half of this year, it lost $283 million.

This week, however, Gemini received a big vote of institutional confidence when Nasdaq said it’s making a strategic investment of $50 million in the crypto company. Nasdaq is seeking to offer its clients access to Gemini’s custodial services, and gain a distribution partner for its trade management system known as Calypso.

Gemini also offers a crypto-backed credit card, and last month, launched another card in partnership with Ripple. The latter garnered more than 30,000 credit card sign-ups in August, a new monthly high that was more than twice the number of credit card sign-ups in the prior month, according to the S-1 filing.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

(Learn the best 2026 strategies from inside the NYSE with Josh Brown and others at CNBC PRO Live. Tickets and info here.)

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OpenAI says nonprofit parent will own equity stake in company of over $100 billion

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OpenAI says nonprofit parent will own equity stake in company of over 0 billion

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella (L), speaks with OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, who joined by video during the Microsoft Build 2025, conference in Seattle, Washington on May 19, 2025.

Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images

OpenAI on Thursday said its nonprofit parent will continue to have oversight over the company and will own an equity stake of more than $100 billion.

The artificial intelligence startup, recently valued at $500 billion, said this structure will make the nonprofit “one of the most well-resourced philanthropic organizations in the world,” and will allow the company to continue to raise capital.

OpenAI also announced it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Microsoft, which outlines the next phase of their partnership. Microsoft has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI, backing the company as early as 2019, three years before the launch of of the chatbot ChatGPT.

“We are actively working to finalize contractual terms in a definitive agreement,” OpenAI said in a joint statement with Microsoft, which is also the company’s key cloud partner. “Together, we remain focused on delivering the best AI tools for everyone, grounded in our shared commitment to safety.”

In May, OpenAI bowed to pressure from civic leaders and ex-employees, announcing that its nonprofit would retain control even as the company was restructuring into a public benefit corporation. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, but has in recent years become one of the fastest-growing commercial entities on the planet.

OpenAI said Thursday it is working closely with the California and Delaware Attorneys General to establish its structure.

“OpenAI started as a nonprofit, remains one today, and will continue to be one – with the nonprofit holding the authority that guides our future,” the company’s Chairman Bret Taylor said in a statement Thursday.

The startup has been engulfed in a heated legal battle with Elon Musk, one of its co-founders. Musk has been trying to keep OpenAI from converting into a for-profit company as he competes in the generative AI market with his own startup, xAI.

OpenAI said its nonprofit is also opening applications for the first phase of a $50 million grant initiative that is aimed to support other nonprofit and community organizations across AI literacy, economic opportunity and community innovation.

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‘We will do better.’ Microsoft CEO Nadella admits company has to rebuild trust with employees

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'We will do better.' Microsoft CEO Nadella admits company has to rebuild trust with employees

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella departs following a meeting of the White House Task Force on AI Education in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Sept. 4, 2025.

Eric Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told employees in a meeting on Thursday that the company has work to do to smooth relations with employees after announcing several rounds of layoffs and a mandated partial return to in-person work.

In the meeting that was held online, an employee asked executives to speak about a perceived lack of empathy in the company’s culture as of late and steps Microsoft is taking to rebuild trust with its workforce.

“I deeply appreciate that, the question and the sentiment behind it,” Nadella said, in audio that was obtained by CNBC. “I take it as feedback for me and everyone in the leadership team, because at the end of the day, I think we can do better, and we will do better.”

Nadella’s comments come after Microsoft slashed 9,000 jobs in July, following smaller reductions in the months prior. On Tuesday, Microsoft said workers living near its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, must come into the office three days a week, starting in February, with a broader rollout to follow.

Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s human resources chief, said at Thursday’s meeting that reception to the return-to-office announcement has been mixed, with some workers feeling like they’re losing autonomy. But she said that employees in and around Seattle already come in, on average, 2.4 times each week.

Like most of the tech industry, Microsoft went fully remote during the pandemic, and made particular use of its internal Teams video and chat offerings, which gained rapid adoption during that period. Microsoft has been slower than many of its peers to put a mandate in place for coming back to the office. Amazon, one of Microsoft’s top rivals, called employees back to offices five days a week in January.

While Nadella and the executive team are taking criticism from some staffers, Wall Street is applauding the company’s growth and execution. The stock is up almost 20% this year, outperforming the broader market, pushing Microsoft’s market cap to $3.7 trillion, which trails only Nvidia among the world’s most-valuable companies.

In July, Microsoft reported a 24% increase in net income to $27 billion. The company’s gross margin was under 69%, compared with 71% in late 2023. It’s rapidly building and renting data center infrastructure to meet artificial intelligence demand.

AI infrastructure build-up is a long-term story as adoption is only consumer based now

Nadella said at the meeting that with remote work, new employees and those who are early in their careers don’t always feel a sense of apprenticeship or mentorship.

“Management is just mostly all remote, but the interns are all, you know, in one location,” he said. “And so those are things that just will break a social contract.”

Microsoft didn’t immediately provide a comment.

Even with Microsoft’s rapid expansion, Nadella said the company is feeling the pressure. It’s a common theme in the software industry, as concerns proliferate about the impact of AI and its potential to automate work.

“We have some very, very hard work ahead of us, and that hard process of renewal is essentially what we have to do,” Nadella said. “You have to be hardcore in terms of an intellectual honesty about what really needs to happen.”

Microsoft’s Azure cloud business grew 39% in the latest quarter, but revenue in the Windows and devices business increased by just 2.5%.

“Some of the biggest businesses we built may not be as relevant going forward,” Nadella said. “Some of the margin that we love today may not be there tomorrow, and that means you have to be way ahead of all of those going away, right?”

Microsoft, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in April, will retain its core values as it confronts market realities, Nadella said.

“Capital markets have one simple truth,” he said. “There is no permission for any company to exist forever.”

That wasn’t the only contentious topic at the meeting.

Employees are awaiting details from a third-party investigation after The Guardian said in August that Israel’s military used Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure to store Palestinians’ phone calls as part of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Microsoft has fired five employees following protests at its headquarters in Redmond, according to a statement from the group No Azure for Apartheid.

Microsoft President Brad Smith, whose office the protesters entered, addressed the issue on Thursday. He said that he and Coleman met with Jewish Microsoft employees, who have been harassed and threatened and have seen their public information shared online.

“We don’t get to control what happens outside Microsoft, but we need to be clear about one thing,” Smith said. “There is no room for antisemitism at Microsoft, and as a company and as a community, we will protect this group and defend them from that.”

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