Nadella testifies: Microsoft has earned $9.5 billion from OpenAI; internal email states, "We don't want to be overtaken like IBM."

According to Beating, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella delivered hours of testimony in the same courtroom on Monday, answering questions from both sides' lawyers regarding Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI. The financial aspect was the most direct. Michael Wetter, Microsoft's corporate development executive, revealed in video testimony played on the same day that as of March 2025, Microsoft had generated a cumulative $9.5 billion in revenue through its partnership with OpenAI, including an agreement where OpenAI would share 20% of its revenue with Microsoft. Nadella said he was "very proud" of taking on venture capital investment in OpenAI when no one else dared to, and denied that Microsoft's investment was a donation. An internal email from 2022 revealed a deeper anxiety within Nadella. In an email to his executive team, he wrote, "We're going to lose $4 billion next year!!!" and demanded renegotiation to obtain OpenAI's AI know-how. In another email, he wrote more bluntly: "I don't want to become IBM, and for OpenAI to become Microsoft." Musk's lawyer pressed for the meaning of this statement, and Nadella admitted that IBM had signed a non-exclusive agreement that allowed Microsoft to rise to prominence, and that he ultimately far surpassed IBM. Regarding Altman's firing in 2023, Nadella mocked the board's actions as "amateurish," saying he never understood the specifics of Altman's alleged "lack of candor." He denied forcing the board to reinstate Altman, but testimony showed that he discussed 14 potential board candidates behind the scenes with his deputies and rejected at least two, including former Google Cloud head Diane Greene, citing a competitive conflict with Google. Nadella also confirmed that Musk never directly expressed his dissatisfaction with Microsoft's investment in OpenAI, saying, "We have each other's phone numbers."