Microsoft heads for record close after announcing Altman will join staff

Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) have been trading higher all day and are up more than 2.2%. If the stock closes above $376.17, it will be at an all-time high.

The move comes after the ouster of Sam Altman at OpenAI sent shockwaves through the tech world over the weekend, surprising everyone from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to investors on Wall Street and VCs in Silicon Valley.

After a weekend-long back-and-forth, Altman and fellow OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman have joined Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team, according to Nadella.

RBC Capital Markets managing director Rishi Jaluria described the past few days as the “most eventful” in his more than a decade covering software. Jaluria categorized the end result as a “huge coup for Microsoft,” as he still sees the tech giant as the leader in generative AI.

“The worries I think everyone had were the pace of innovation would slow down, some of the AI halo around Microsoft that it’s been enjoying in its [stock] multiple would start to dissipate,” Jaluria told Yahoo Finance Live. “Customers would get worried. I think by bringing in Sam and Greg, and Sam is really the ultimate visionary when it comes to AI, it’s really the best-case scenario for Microsoft.”

For investors, there are still concerns about how uncertainty at OpenAI could impact Microsoft’s business in the short term. Nadella mentioned on the company’s most recent earnings call that Microsoft’s Azure cloud services were being used by OpenAI.

Evercore ISI analyst Kirk Materne noted that any fundamental risk to Microsoft is largely “contained” with Altman now onboard.

“When taking a long-term view, hiring Altman and team might end up being a better outcome vs the prior status quo,” Materne said. “Clearly, there is still some risk to Azure if OpenAI growth were to materially slow, but we think the long-term opportunity around GenAI for Microsoft trumps any near-term risk associated with the OpenAI disruption.”

Oppenheimer analysts Timothy Horan and Edward Yang wrote in a research note Monday that this is a “win/win” for Microsoft.

In his own note to clients, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives suggested Altman could’ve ended up at another competitor, writing, “Instead he is safely in Microsoft’s HQ now leading the company key AI efforts which we expect many key scientists and developers to leave OpenAI and head directly to Microsoft.”