The news follows a whirlwind weekend for the world’s most well-known artificial intelligence company, OpenAI, whose board on Friday announced it had ousted Sam Altman due to no longer being confident in his ability to lead.

In a statement, the company wrote that the former CEO “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” which resulted in his dismissal. The details of the supposedly uncandid communications from Altman, who’s something of a poster boy for the AI industry, aren’t publicly known.

This morning, just days after the unexpected ousting, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took to X to state that the Big Tech firm has snapped up both Altman and Brockman, the latter of whom left OpenAI in protest following the board’s decision.

“We’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team,” Nadella wrote. “We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.”

Altman reposted the announcement, adding: “the mission continues,” to which Nadella replied: “I’m super excited to have you join as CEO of this new group, Sam, setting a new pace for innovation. We’ve learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios, and LinkedIn, and I’m looking forward to having you do the same.”

Microsoft has been a partner of OpenAI for a number of years, having first invested $1 billion in the Altman-led company in 2019 — and it’s since been reported that Microsoft’s cumulative investment in the firm has reached $13 billion. OpenAI’s technology can be found within Microsoft products and services, not least search engine Bing, and through its 365 suite with the Copilot assistant.

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As Altman and Brockman prepare to move to Microsoft, Emmett Shear — the former CEO and co-founder of video game streaming platform Twitch — will also soon start at OpenAI, after accepting the offer to become its interim CEO.

In Nadella’s post announcing the hiring of Altman and Brockman, and regarding Microsoft’s still ongoing partnership with OpenAI, he stipulated that “We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI’s new leadership team and working with them.”