(BBC News) Microsoft has offered to match the pay of any staff who join it from crisis-ridden OpenAI.
Sam Altman was controversially sacked as CEO on Friday, leading to a job offer at Microsoft to lead “a new advanced AI research team.”
Almost every staff member at OpenAI has threatened to leave unless Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman are reinstated.
It is still unclear whether Altman will ultimately join Microsoft, which is OpenAI’s biggest investor by far.
Evan Morikawa, an engineering manager at OpenAI, has claimed that 743 out of 770 employees have signed a letter calling on the board to resign — with staff themselves threatening to leave if their demands are not met.
In the letter, they claim they had been offered jobs at Microsoft — something the company’s chief technology officer Kevin Scott has now confirmed, telling staff that “if needed” they will be hired by Microsoft in a role that “matches your compensation.”