I genuinely can't believe the board didn't see this coming. I think they could have won in the court of public opinion if their press release said they loved Sam but felt like his skills and ambitions diverged from their mission. But instead, they tried to skewer him, and it backfired completely.
I hope Sam comes back. He'll make a lot more money if he doesn't, but I trust Sam a lot more than whomever they ultimately replace him with. I just hope that if he does come back, he doesn't use it as a chance to consolidate power – he's said in the past it's a good thing the board can fire him, and I hope he finds better board members rather than eschewing a board altogether.
EDIT: Yup, Satya is involved https://twitter.com/emilychangtv/status/1726025717077688662
From Greg's tweet, it seems like the chaos was largely driven Ilya, who has also been very outspoken against open source and sharing research, which makes me think his motivations are more aligned with those of Microsoft/Satya. I still can't tell if Sam got ousted because he was getting in the way of a Microsoft takeover, or if Sam was trying to set the stage for a Microsoft takeover. It's all very confusing.