Hundreds of OpenAI employees, including co-founder and board member Ilya Sutskever, have signed a letter demanding that either OpenAI’s remaining board members resign or those OpenAI employees will join Sam Altman’s new venture at Microsoft, according to NBCNews.
“Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI,” the letter says. About 667 people have signed the letter. OpenAI has about 770 employees.
The letter says that Microsoft has “assured” those employees that they would have jobs at the new subsidiary, should they “choose to join.”
Signatories include some of OpenAI’s most senior executives. Former interim CEO Mira Murati and OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap are the first two signatories on the letter. Murati was appointed as CEO following Altman’s exit but was then succeeded by Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear.
Wired first reported on the letter Monday morning.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, speaks during The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, on Oct. 17, 2023.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
In an about-face, Sutskever’s name appears as a signature on the letter. He wrote Monday morning on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that he “deeply” regretted his participation in the “board’s actions.”
Multiple OpenAI employees voiced their support on social media as well. “OpenAI is nothing without its people,” the missives said.
Altman was forced out Friday by OpenAI’s board, including Sutskever, which cited unspecified issues with his communications. That prompted a backlash from employees and investors, CNBC has previously reported, including Microsoft, Thrive Capital, and Sequoia.
The board then attempted to negotiate Altman’s return, but those talks were unsuccessful. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Sunday announced that Altman and fellow OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman would join the company in a new, largely independent venture. Nadella’s announcement also referred to their “colleagues” joining Microsoft, although the number wasn’t clear.
Microsoft declined to comment on whether it would hire employees who choose to leave OpenAI. OpenAI wasn’t immediately available to comment on the letter.
Here’s the full note, emphasis theirs:
“To the Board of Directors at OpenAI,
OpenAI is the world’s leading AI company. We, the employees of OpenAI, have developed the best models and pushed the field to new frontiers. Our work on AI safety and governance shapes global norms. The products we built are used by millions of people around the world. Until now, the company we work for and cherish has never been in a stronger position.
The process through which you terminated Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board has jeopardized all of this work and undermined our mission and company. Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI.
When we all unexpectedly learned of your decision, the leadership team of OpenAI acted swiftly to stabilize the company. They carefully listened to your concerns and tried to cooperate with you on all grounds. Despite many requests for specific facts for your allegations, you have never provided any written evidence. They also increasingly realized you were not capable of carrying out your duties, and were negotiating in bad faith.
The leadership team suggested that the most stabilizing path forward – the one that would best serve our mission, company, stakeholders, employees and the public – would be for you to resign and put in place a qualified board that could lead the company forward in stability. Leadership worked with you around the clock to find a mutually agreeable outcome. Yet within two days of your initial decision, you again replaced interim CEO Mira Murati against the best interests of the company. You also informed the leadership team that allowing the company to be destroyed “would be consistent with the mission.”
Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI. We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgement and care for our mission and employees. We, the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join. We will take this step imminently, unless all current board members resign, and the board appoints two new lead independent directors, such as Bret Taylor and Will Hurd, and reinstates Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.”
— CNBC’s Jordan Novet and Hayden Field contributed to this report.
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This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, speaks during an unveiling event in New York on Feb. 26, 2025.
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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Wednesday that the company hasn’t seen any signs of consumers tightening their wallets in the face of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
Jassy’s comments came during Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting, which was held virtually on Wednesday.
“We have not seen any attenuation of demand at this point,” Jassy said during a question-and-answer portion of the meeting. “We also haven’t yet seen any meaningful average selling price increases.”
Amazon and other retailers continue to digest the impact of Trump’s tariffs. Rival retailer Walmartwarned last week that consumers could start seeing price hikes from tariffs later this month and in June. Within days, that sparked the ire of Trump, who urged the company to “EAT THE TARIFFS.”
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Targetsaid Wednesday it will likely need to hike prices on some items, while Home Depotsaid it expects to maintain its current pricing levels.
Jassy said last month the company made some “strategic forward inventory buys” to stock up on goods and is “pretty maniacally focused” on keeping prices low for shoppers.
Some third-party sellers, which account for roughly 60% of products sold, have increased prices on certain items, while others have opted to keep prices steady, Jassy said on Wednesday.
“I think that the diversity and the size of our marketplace really helps customers have the best selection of the best prices,” Jassy said.
OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman appears on screen during a talk with Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella at the Microsoft Build 2025, conference in Seattle, Washington on May 19, 2025.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
OpenAI said on Wednesday that it’s buying Jony Ive’s AI devices startup io for about $6.4 billion in an all-equity deal that includes its current stake in the company.
Ive is taking on “deep creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and io,” OpenAI said in a statement. The company said that io is merging with OpenAI, while Ive and his “creative collective” called LoveFrom will stay independent.
In a blog post on Wednesday from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ive, the pair said that io was founded a year ago by Ive, along with Apple alumni Scott Cannon, Tang Tan and Evans Hankey, who briefly took over Ive’s role at Apple after he departed.
“The io team, focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable, will now merge with OpenAI to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,” the post said.
OpenAI said it’s paying $5 billion given that it already owns 23% of the company.
The purchase is by far OpenAI’s largest and comes weeks after the company agreed to buy AI-assisted coding tool Windsurf for $3 billion. Prior to that, OpenAI acquired analytics database company Rockset for an undisclosed sum in 2024.
Ive announced in 2019 that he was leaving Apple, where he was the longtime chief design officer, to start LoveFrom. Airbnb said in 2020 that Ive was consulting with the company on hiring and future products. The New York Times reported last year that LoveFrom’s clients pay the firm up to $200 million a year and that its designers at the time were working on projects for Christie’s, Airbnb and Ferrarri.
LoveFrom says on its website that it was founded by Ive and designer Marc Newson, but the doesn’t say anything about what the company does or include any mention of io.
Apple chief design officer Jony Ive (L) and Apple CEO Tim Cook inspect the new iPhone XR during an Apple special event at the Steve Jobs Theatre on September 12, 2018 in Cupertino, California.
Ive is responsible for designing Apple‘s most iconic products, including the iPod, iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. He also helped design Apple’s new Cupertino headquarters, called Apple Park, a project that began in 2004 with the campus officially opening in 2019.
News of the acquisition comes as OpenAI, which was recently valued at $300 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank, is rushing to stay ahead in the generative AI race, where competitors including Google, Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI are investing heavily and regularly rolling out new products. Part of staying ahead in that race includes shoring up its hardware operations.
To further its hardware ambitions, OpenAI hired the former head of Meta’s Orion augmented reality glasses initiative in November to lead its robotics and consumer hardware efforts. Caitlin “CK” Kalinowski wrote in an announcement at the time that the role would “initially focus on OpenAI’s robotics work and partnerships to help bring AI into the physical world and unlock its benefits for humanity.”
Also late last year, OpenAI invested in Physical Intelligence, a robot startup based in San Francisco, which raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion valuation. Other investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The startup focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” according to its website, by developing large-scale AI models and algorithms to power robots.
Windows 11 operating system logo is displayed on a laptop screen for illustration photo.
Beata Zawrzel | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Microsoft said Wednesday that it broke down the Lumma Stealer malware project with the help of law enforcement officials across the globe.
The tech giant said in a blog post that its digital crimes unit discovered over 394,000 Windows computers were infected by the Lumma malware worldwide between March 16 through May 16.
The Lumma malware was a favorite hacking tool used by bad actors, Microsoft said in the post. Hackers used the malware to steal passwords, credit cards, bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets.
Microsoft said its digital crimes unit was able to dismantle the web domains underpinning Lumma’s infrastructure with the help of a court order from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
The U.S. Department of Justice then took control of Lumma’s “central command structure” and squashed the online marketplaces where bad actors purchased the malware.
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The cybercrime control center of Japan “facilitated the suspension of locally based Lumma infrastructure,” the blog post said.
“Working with law enforcement and industry partners, we have severed communications between the malicious tool and victims,” Microsoft said in the post. “Moreover, more than 1,300 domains seized by or transferred to Microsoft, including 300 domains actioned by law enforcement with the support of Europol, will be redirected to Microsoft sinkholes.”
Microsoft said that other tech companies like Cloudflare, Bitsight and Lumen also helped break down the Lumma malware ecosystem.
Hackers have been buying the Lumma malware via underground online forums since at least 2022, all while developers were “continually improving its capabilities,” the blog post said.
The malware has become the “go-to tool for cybercriminals and online threat actors” because it’s easy to spread and break through some security defenses with the right programming, the company said.
In one example of how criminals used Lumma, Microsoft pointed to a March 2025 phishing campaign in which bad actors misled people into believing they were part of the Booking.com online travel service.
These cyber criminals used the Lumma malware to carry out their financial crimes in this scheme, the company said.
Additionally, Microsoft said that hackers have used the Lumma to attack online gaming communities and education systems, while other cybersecurity companies have noted that the malware has been used in cyber attacks targeting manufacturing, logistics, healthcare and other related critical infrastructure.