It’s quite rare for these board communications to say anything of substance at all. You let the PR folks work their magic and manage the narrative. This reads like 4 people out of their depth desperately trying to justify themselves.
I would not be surprised if it turns out Microsoft has a multibillion dollar, complex financial instrument axe on the necks of these people by Monday forcing a sale or a new management structure that gives them more control.
The board of OpenAI has their hands on the ultimate self-destruct button, though. If M$ made a power play, worse case scenario they end up with ownership of the for-profit OpenAI, but they'd still have no control of the non-profit, which owns the intellectual property.
If the deal goes sideways, the board of OpenAI (the nonprofit) could just dump everything onto the open internet. All M$ has is a substantial but minority stake in a company that the non-profit OpenAI owns all the beef of.
I would not be surprised if it turns out Microsoft has a multibillion dollar, complex financial instrument axe on the necks of these people by Monday forcing a sale or a new management structure that gives them more control.