ai cloud strategy

Microsoft executives worried in 2017 that refusing OpenAI’s request for vastly expanded Azure compute could push the AI lab toward Amazon, damage Azure’s reputation, and turn a fast-rising research group into a public critic rather than a strategic Microsoft ally. The newly surfaced emails are...

Court filings in the Musk v. Altman trial, reported May 8, 2026, show Microsoft executives in 2017 weighing OpenAI’s request for hundreds of millions of dollars in Azure compute while worrying the AI lab might move work to Amazon. The emails are historical, but they read less like trivia than...