What will be the value of Microsoft’s $13 billion investment in OpenAI?
Computerworld.com reported that “The fight between Microsoft and OpenAI over what Microsoft should get for its $13 billion investment in the AI company has gone from nasty to downright toxic, with each of the companies considering strategies against the other that can only be described as their nuclear options.” The June 24, 2025 article entitled “Microsoft and OpenAI: Will they opt for the nuclear option?’ (https://www.computerworld.com/article/4011227/microsoft-and-openai-will-they-opt-for-the-nuclear-option.html) included these comments:
Microsoft needs access to OpenAI technologies to keep its worldwide lead in AI and grow its valuation beyond its current more than $3.5 trillion. OpenAI needs Microsoft to sign a deal so the company can go public via an IPO. Without an IPO, the company isn’t likely to keep its highly valued AI researchers — they’ll probably be poached by companies willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the talent.
How did things get so down and dirty? What comes next? To find out, let’s look at what started it all: that potential OpenAI IPO.
Chasing a $300 billion+ IPO
OpenAI was originally created as a non-profit with the sole goal of making sure AI was developed and used in an ethical manner. Founders, including current CEO Sam Altman and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk among others, said they wanted the technology to be “used in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”
But that was before it became clear that trillions of dollars were at stake. So, now the company wants to restructure itself in a way that would include a for-profit focus and allow it to launch an IPO. If the IPO were launched today, the company would be worth an estimated $300 billion. Given that it won’t be launched until next year, the stakes are likely even higher.
Before OpenAI can go public, it must get approval for its restructuring from California, where the company is based, and Delaware, where the company is incorporated. To gain those approvals, it needs to ink a deal with Microsoft, its earliest and primary investor.
Because of the peculiarities of OpenAI’s non-profit founding, Microsoft and OpenAI never made clear how Microsoft would be paid off if OpenAI went public. They’ve been sparring about it for more than a year. Now, the fight has become a steel-cage deathmatch.
What do you think?