The release of GPT-5 on Thursday gave Microsoft an opportunity to spotlight its exclusive cloud API partnership with OpenAI — and Elon Musk helped to boost attention, in a roundabout way.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella posted that GPT-5 was launching across Microsoft platforms including Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Azure AI Foundry.
“OpenAI is going to eat Microsoft alive,” Musk responded.
Nadella took it in stride, and subtly reminded Musk that he’s a Microsoft partner, as well, albeit on a much smaller scale, after the two tech leaders announced in May that Microsoft would begin hosting Grok models from Musk’s xAI on Azure.
“People have been trying for 50 years and that’s the fun of it! Each day you learn something new, and innovate, partner, and compete,” Nadella responded. “Excited for Grok 4 on Azure and looking forward to Grok 5!”
The GPT-5 release comes at a timely moment for Microsoft, two days after Amazon was able to trumpet the fact that its AWS cloud will be hosting two OpenAI models for the first time, the open-weight gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b, thanks to their release under the Apache 2.0 license.
All of it comes as Microsoft and OpenAI reportedly renegotiate their partnership and equity terms, a reminder that Redmond’s most important AI alliance is still evolving.
As for Microsoft’s relationship with Musk, it’s complicated in a different way. Musk last year added Microsoft as a defendant to his lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the companies formed a de facto AI monopoly.
On CNBC’s Squawk Box, co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about the Nadella-Musk exchange: “What do you think when you read that?”
“You know,” Altman said, “I don’t think about him that much.”
