Far from certain. One, they still control a lot of money and cloud credits. Two, they can credibly threaten to license to a competitor or even open source everything, thereby destroying the unique value of the work.
> without all the regulatory headaches of a formal acquisition
This, too, is far from certain.
This too is far from certain. The funding and credits was at best tied to milestones, and at worst, the investment contract is already broken and msft can walk.
I suspect they would not actually do the latter and the ip is tied to continual partnership.