issued Thursday, June 11, 2026 · 06:27 PM
[SAN FRANCISCO] Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, 58, said on Wednesday (June 10) that despite the clear backlash against artificial intelligence in the United States, the technology will boost wages.
He added that in AI, “everyone is a stakeholder.”
“There’s no denying that the perception is terrible,” he said at the San Francisco hard fork. new york times Technology Podcast.
He acknowledged that there could be job losses due to AI, but hinted at the technology’s power and benefits.
Nadella added that he is not opposed to people sharing the wealth from AI companies.
This idea was recently championed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who argues that AI is a “public resource” that Americans should have some level of ownership over.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump also weighed in on the concept for the second time in a week, saying Americans could get rich by sharing the wealth from AI companies.
Nadella’s comments come at a time when AI is becoming an increasingly political issue.
A national movement of parent groups, religious leaders, environmentalists and former Tea Party activists is condemning the technology and construction of the country’s AI data centers.
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Many have criticized the technology, saying it could cost jobs, endanger national security and affect people’s mental health.
Fierce AI competition
Mr. Nadella has guided Microsoft, one of the world’s largest publicly traded companies, through a fierce AI race.
The tech giant, along with Google, Amazon and Meta, has spent billions of dollars building data centers to gain enough computing power to develop the technology.
In 2019, Nadella oversaw Microsoft’s initial investment in OpenAI. This bet proved prescient when AI Labs’ ChatGPT chatbot took the world by storm in late 2022.
Microsoft ultimately invested an additional $12 billion in OpenAI. This partnership gave Microsoft an early lead in the AI space.
However, as competition intensifies, Nadella recently renegotiated the relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI to reduce co-dependence between the two companies. Microsoft remains the startup’s majority shareholder and biggest financial backer.
Nadella said Microsoft’s resources, especially computing, must be carefully allocated to serve customers, strengthen OpenAI, and develop Microsoft’s own AI products and systems.
new york times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. Both companies denied the lawsuit’s allegations.
Nadella said at Wednesday’s event that the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI remains important to his company, noting how the startup will continue to provide intellectual property.
Nadella also mentioned a memo the new leaders of Xbox, Microsoft’s video game division, sent to staff on Wednesday about a reset for the next 100 days.
He said the challenge for Xbox was to make money from entertainment content, and it also had to deal with rising costs for materials used in the video game consoles it makes.
“Semiconductor and memory supply shortages in particular are having a significant impact on consumer electronics,” he added.
He said: “We have to turn this into a sustainable business that provides what is fundamentally one of the best sources of entertainment.” new york times
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