Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft and a defendant in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, testified during the Musk v. OpenAI hearing. The ongoing case centers on Musk’s allegations that OpenAI deviated from its original nonprofit mission of developing artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
Microsoft is a co-defendant in the case because of its partnership with OpenAI. Musk alleges that Microsoft influenced OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman to move away from OpenAI’s stated nonprofit mission by pursuing lucrative commercial agreements tied to cloud computing services.
During testimony, Nadella said Musk never objected as Microsoft’s licensing and revenue-sharing partnership with OpenAI expanded.
Responding to questions from Microsoft’s attorney, Nadella argued that Musk — who co-founded OpenAI and was involved with the organization at the time — initially welcomed the partnership that eventually grew into Microsoft’s reported $13 billion investment in OpenAI, which Musk is now challenging in court. Nadella also told jurors that Microsoft absorbed a $15 million loss by allowing OpenAI to use its Azure cloud platform at discounted rates to help power the technology behind ChatGPT.
READ: Newly admissible diary entries in Musk-OpenAI case fuel questions about AI privacy (May 11, 2026)
Nadella testified that Musk personally thanked him in an August 2017 email, after an OpenAI bot defeated an elite pro player in the world championship tournament for the game “Dota 2.”
“Very much appreciated,” Musk told Nadella in the email, after Nadella congratulated the cofounders on their win. “Will make sure that people know about Microsoft’s help.”
When a Microsoft lawyer asked Nadella if Musk ever complained to him about the partnership, he said he heard no complaints when the revenue-sharing partnership with OpenAI was announced in July 2019, and or even when news broke in 2023 that Microsoft’s investment stake had just risen by $10 billion.
Nadella mentioned that he and Musk “have each other’s numbers.”
Nadella was also asked about a remark he made to New York magazine following Altman’s brief ouster from OpenAI in 2023, “If OpenAI disappeared tomorrow,” Nadella told the magazine, “We have all the IP rights and all the capability,” he said, referring to Microsoft’s intellectual property. “We are below them, above them, around them,” he added.
On the stand, Nadella defended his “above, below, around” statement, saying he was trying to calm any concerns over Altman’s ouster. “It goes back to me trying to communicate as clearly as possible to customers that they can count on us,” Nadella said, meaning that Copilot and other OpenAI products would remain unaffected by the issues at OpenAI.
READ: Elon Musk to return to witness stand in OpenAI trial (April 29, 2026)
According to Nadella, OpenAI’s board members failed to provide an explanation for firing Altman. “I just felt like there must have been some jealousies or communications or what have you,” Nadella said. “And this is sort of an amateur city, as far as I’m concerned.”
He added that he needed to be the adult in the room and bring OpenAI back to becoming a functioning organization by helping Altman return to leadership.
“By the time, I was very worried that the employees were all going to leave en masse, and that would have been bad for OpenAI, and obviously bad for Microsoft.”
According to reports, Nadella’s comments can potentially undermine Musk’s case. Following Nadella’s testimony, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, took the witness stand, saying his stake in OpenAI’s for-profit arm is worth about $7 billion.