At a Glance
- Microsoft executives pressed OpenAI to prioritize revenue during 2019-2023 partnership talks
- CFO Amy Hood questioned OpenAI’s “capped” nonprofit structure as insufficiently altruistic
- Satya Nadella repeatedly asked Sam Altman when ChatGPT would launch paid subscriptions
- OpenAI revenues grew tenfold between 2023 and 2025 after commercial pivot
Why it matters: The documents reveal how investor pressure transformed a safety-focused AI research lab into a profit-driven juggernaut.
Internal emails and texts released through Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft show the software giant’s role in pushing the AI startup toward rapid commercialization. The correspondence, unearthed by GeekWire’s Todd Bishop, captures Microsoft’s growing impatience with OpenAI’s cautious approach between 2019 and 2023.
The Nonprofit Pivot
In March 2019, OpenAI converted from a nonprofit to a “capped” for-profit entity. The move came weeks after the lab announced GPT-2, a language model it initially deemed too dangerous for public release. OpenAI later reversed course in November 2019, publishing the model while acknowledging it couldn’t “be aware of all threats.”
The transition puzzled observers. OpenAI had branded itself as a cautious research outfit warning about AI risks, yet now raced to ship products. Document discovery reveals Microsoft’s influence behind this shift.
Microsoft’s Revenue Pressure
Microsoft had invested heavily in OpenAI by mid-2019. In a July 14 email to CEO Satya Nadella and others, CFO Amy Hood questioned the significance of OpenAI’s profit cap.
“Given the cap is actually larger than 90% of public companies, I am not sure it is terribly constraining nor terribly altruistic but that is Sam’s call on his cap,” Hood wrote.
The message underscored Microsoft’s focus on financial returns from its AI partnership.
Accelerating the Timeline
After GPT-3 launched in 2020 and DALL-E debuted in January 2021, Microsoft and OpenAI negotiated additional funding. In February 2021, Sam Altman emailed Microsoft executives pledging to “make you all a bunch of money as quickly as we can.”
“We want to do everything we can to make you all commercially successful and are happy to move significantly from the term sheet,” Altman wrote, urging swift investment.
The ChatGPT Payday
When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, Nadella immediately pushed for monetization. In January 2023, he texted Altman asking “when do you think you will activate your paid subscription for ChatGPT?”
Altman responded the company hoped to launch paid tiers by month’s end but remained flexible. He cited capacity constraints rather than business strategy as the driver.
“The only real reason for rushing it is we are just so out of capacity and delivering a bad user experience,” Altman wrote.
Nadella replied that “getting this in place sooner is best.” Two weeks later, he asked about subscriber numbers. The paid version launched three days after that inquiry.
Financial Transformation
The documents show OpenAI’s evolution from safety-focused research lab to revenue-maximizing business. Between 2023 and 2025, OpenAI’s revenues grew tenfold, transforming the company into what Hood might characterize as unconstrained by altruistic considerations.
The correspondence reveals how investor expectations, rather than technical readiness or safety considerations, drove product launch timing. Microsoft’s push for quick monetization shaped OpenAI’s public rollout of breakthrough AI systems.
Key Takeaways
- Microsoft executives viewed OpenAI’s nonprofit constraints as nominal rather than meaningful
- Nadella personally monitored ChatGPT’s path to paid subscriptions
- OpenAI’s commercial success followed investor pressure to prioritize revenue
- The company abandoned its cautious AI deployment stance under financial pressure
