Microsoft and OpenAI’s Partnership Faces Strain Over $3 Billion Acquisition
The partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI is facing severe strain due to OpenAI’s $3 billion acquisition of coding company Windsurf. The tension has escalated to the point where OpenAI executives have considered filing antitrust complaints against Microsoft, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The dispute centers on Microsoft’s current access to all of OpenAI’s intellectual property under their existing agreement. OpenAI wants to block Microsoft from accessing Windsurf’s technology, particularly as Microsoft offers its own competing AI coding product, GitHub Copilot. The companies are also at odds over OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit structure, which must be completed by year-end or the startup risks losing $20 billion in funding. Microsoft is demanding a larger ownership stake in the converted company than OpenAI is willing to provide.
Under their current deal, Microsoft has exclusive rights to sell OpenAI’s software through its Azure cloud platform and serves as the company’s primary compute provider. OpenAI now wants to partner with other cloud providers to expand its customer base and access additional computing resources. The relationship has grown increasingly strained as both companies have evolved from partners into direct competitors across consumer chatbots and business AI tools.
Despite the tensions, both companies issued a joint statement calling their partnership “long-term” and “productive,” saying talks remain ongoing and expressing optimism about continuing to “build together for years to come.”
