It’s a bit tragic that Ilya and company achieved the exact opposite of what they intended apparently, by driving those they attempted to slow down into the arms of people with more money and less morals. Well.
If you looked at sama's actions and not his words, he seems intent on maximizing his power, control and prestige (new yorker profile, press blitzes, making a constant effort to rub shoulders with politicians/power players, worldcoin etc). I think getting in bed with Microsoft with the early investment would have allowed sama to entertain the possibility that he could succeed Satya at Microsoft some time in the distant future; that is, in the event that OpenAI never became as big or bigger than Microsoft (his preferred goal presumably) -- and everything else went mostly right for him. After all, he's always going on about how much money is needed for AGI. He wanted more direct access to the money. Now he has it.
Ultimately, this shows how little sama cared for the OpenAI charter to begin with, specifically the part about benefiting all humanity and preventing an unduly concentration of power. He didn’t start his own separate company because the talent was at OpenAI. He wanted to poach the talent, not obey the charter.
Peter Hintjens (ZeroMQ, RIP) wrote a book called "The Psychopath Code", where he posits that psychopaths are attracted to jobs with access to vulnerable people [0]. Selfless talented idealists who do not chase status and prestige can be vulnerable to manipulation. Perhaps that's why Musk pulled out of OpenAI, him and sama were able to recognize the narcissist in each other and put their guard up accordingly. As Altman says, "Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.”[1] Perhaps this apply to him as well.
Amusingly, someone recently posted an old tweet by pg: "The most surprising thing I've learned from being involved with nonprofits is that they are a magnet for sociopaths."[1] As others in the thread noted, if true, it's up for debate whether this applies more to sama or Ilya. Time will tell I guess.
It'll also be interesting to see what assurances were given to sama et al about being exempt from Microsoft's internal red tape. Prior to this, Microsoft had at least a little plausible deniability if OpenAI was ever embroiled in controversy regarding its products. They won't have that luxury with sama's team in-house anymore.
[0] https://hintjens.gitbooks.io/psychopathcode/content/chapter8...
[1] https://archive.is/uUG7H#selection-2071.78-2071.166
[2] >>38339379