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• University of Michigan’s $20 million bet on OpenAI could yield billions, a court exhibit shows.
• The school’s investment arrived before Microsoft poured billions into the AI lab.
• OpenAI’s meteoric rise means the potential for huge windfalls for early investors.

University of Michigan made a very good, very early bet on OpenAI.

Investors running the public school’s endowments put $20 million into one of the AI lab’s earliest fundraising efforts, according to an exhibit in the ongoing Elon Musk and Sam Altman litigation. The University of Michigan moved in before Microsoft invested billions into OpenAI and before ChatGPT’s release kicked off the modern AI boom. The Ann Arbor school stands to make a fortune.

While the document is unclear about the exact terms of Michigan’s stake, the university is sitting pretty. When it contributed $20 million, it set a “target redemption amount” of $2 billion. That’s how much the university aims to earn back from OpenAI.

The university’s $20 million stake arrived in the same early cluster as $50 million investments from Khosla Ventures and from LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman’s venture philanthropy fund, the Aphorism Foundation. The batch also included $10 million from a Y Combinator fund and $3 million from the trust of Gmail creator Paul Buchheit. Microsoft’s 2019 infusion of $1 billion came later, the document shows.

The University of Michigan and the other early investors would be prioritized above Microsoft in OpenAI’s payout order, the document says. Their “target redemption amounts” also rise with inflation.

The University of Michigan and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

It’s common for endowments to invest with Silicon Valley venture capitalists, though it’s rarer to see a direct stake. Michigan’s total endowment is huge — valued at $21.2 billion last year — and has also invested with Sam Altman’s and his brother Jack Altman’s venture funds.

Dan Feder, who leads the university endowment’s venture capital and private equity investments, joined Jack Altman’s podcast last June. Feder said that venture capital is “a pretty lousy area to invest unless you are investing or getting exposure to the underlying companies that really matter.”

Altman replied, “In which case it’s obviously very good.”

“It’s very good. Very, very good,” Feder said.

The University of Michigan wouldn’t be the only school to make a killing from an early tech investment. In 2017, a Catholic high school in the San Francisco Bay Area made $24 billion from Snap’s IPO.

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• Kevin O’Leary says people have misconceptions about what data centers are.
• O’Leary is building a data center in Utah despite community resistance.
• Data center development has become a serious issue for many American communities.

Many Americans don’t like the AI data centers popping up in their communities, though Kevin O’Leary thinks that’s because they don’t fully understand them.

O’Leary, the venture capitalist and “Shark Tank” investor who recently starred as a villainous businessman in “Marty Supreme,” said Americans have misconceptions about data centers and their environmental impact.

“It’s understanding the concerns of people, but at the same time, think about the number of jobs,” O’Leary said in a post on X on Friday.

Addressing environmental worries, O’Leary noted that he graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in environmental studies.

“When a group comes to me and says, ‘Look, I have concerns about water, I have concerns about air, I have concerns about wildlife,’ I totally get it,” O’Leary said.

O’Leary has clashed with residents in Box Elder County, Utah, over a new AI data center he’s backing on a 40,000-acre campus.

County commissioners approved the project, which is also backed by Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority, on Monday despite the community opposition. O’Leary said, without providing evidence, that the criticism mainly came from “professional protesters” who were “paid by somebody.”

One major concern for residents about the data center — dubbed the Stratos Project — is that it could strain the water supply. Data centers can use millions of gallons of water each day. Increased utility bills, noise, and a drop in quality of life are also points of contention.

O’Leary said the public misunderstands the impact of data centers because they were “poorly represented” in the past, and that the technology powering them has “advanced dramatically.” He said data centers don’t use as much water as they once did and can use a closed-loop system to avoid evaporation. Data centers can also rely on air-cooled turbines as an alternative to managing the temperature of the computer arrays, he said.

A fact sheet published by Box Elder County said the project won’t divert water from the nearby Great Salt Lake, agriculture, or homes. It also says that Stratos won’t increase electricity prices or taxes.

Many residents, however, are not so sure. The Salt Lake Tribune reported on Thursday that an application to divert water from the Salt Wells Spring stream, near the Great Salt Lake and long used by a local ranch for irrigation, was rescinded after nearly thousands of Utah residents lodged complaints.

“At some point, understanding the value of sustainability, water and air rights, indigenous rights, and making sure the constituencies understand what you’re doing is going to be more valuable than the equity you raise,” O’Leary said on X.

Anjney Midha, a Stanford University adjunct lecturer who appeared on the “Access” podcast this week, would agree with that sentiment. He said that listening to local communities and being transparent about the intentions and impacts of data centers are essential to making them work.

“My view is that if it’s not legible to the public that these data centers and the infrastructure required to unblock this kind of frontier technology progress are serving their benefit, then it’s not going to work out,” Midha said.

In a subsequent post on X on Friday, O’Leary said his project would be “totally transparent.”

“We want it to be the shining example of how you do this,” he said.

• A version of this story originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
• Sign up for the weekly BI Tech Memo newsletter here.

I went to Anthropic‘s developer conference this week with Business Insider’s new AI reporter, Stephen Council. He’s a terrific writer and a joy to work with, so give him a follow.

The big news: Anthropic is renting AI compute from a giant data center run by SpaceX. So if you use Claude because you think it’s the most ethical AI chatbot, you now have Elon Musk to thank when it runs smoothly and fast.

Hence the edited Claude catchphrase in the photo below. Full disclosure, I used generative AI to change this image to make a newsworthy point and have some fun.

The broader takeaway: After subtly criticizing Sam Altman last year for signing too many AI compute deals, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is now copying OpenAI’s playbook.

Why? AI demand is vastly outstripping compute supply. Anthropic has struggled with outages and imposed usage limits in recent months, frustrating developers.

“We’ve had difficulties with compute,” Amodei said on stage. “We’re sorry if sometimes it takes some time, but we’re gonna keep going to acquire as much as we can.”

Soon after the SpaceX deal was announced, Anthropic relaxed several rate limits, especially around Claude Code, its fast-growing AI coding service. That matters because some developers recently shifted to OpenAI’s Codex partly because OpenAI’s earlier compute deals meant fewer restrictions.

I heard versions of this theme all afternoon at the conference: startups, developers, and tech companies all need more AI capacity.

• One startup CEO told me he recently called a top Google executive to plead for more Gemini tokens, the core unit of AI usage these days.

• I also ran into a Cursor executive who crossed his fingers and looked anxious waiting for the startup’s own SpaceX compute deal to kick in. He said shifting massive data-center capacity between customers is relatively easy because most facilities use similar Nvidia GPUs. Indeed, Anthropic said it will have access to new SpaceX compute within the month.

• A senior Anthropic executive privately admitted the company underestimated demand. When usage surged far faster than expected this year, they scrambled to respond.

It’s an incredible problem to have. If Anthropic’s revenue growth continues at anything close to its current 80x annual pace for another year, the startup would become one of the highest-revenue companies in the world.

Stephen noticed signs of that hypergrowth everywhere at the conference:

“I’ve been covering Big Tech conferences for years. They’re almost always annual, with long-awaited products to peddle. But for Anthropic, the one-year cycle felt almost pointless. It’s growing and shipping absurdly fast. I got one demo from someone who’d been here a few weeks; other workers told me they can barely keep up. Features are flipping from research preview to public beta in no time. If Anthropic can’t teach its developers and customers week-in, week-out, no one will be able to follow along.”

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

“This is the real Met Gala.“

I was at the New York City Ballet’s 2026 Spring Gala inside the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, sharing a cocktail table with two other art lovers and fashion enthusiasts.

It was a fair assessment, considering that over the decades, this event has transformed from an arts fundraiser to a fixture on the New York City social calendar.

Ballet, here, is not just a performance. It’s a gathering of philanthropists, celebrities, artists, and even tech founders, as former ballerina turned the founder of Mirror, Brynn Putnam, was one of the gala’s chairs. She was joined by honorary chair Mick Jagger and members of a host committee, including Stephen Colbert, Claire Danes, Ashley Graham, Nicole Ari Parker, and Christian Siriano.

Around the room, Business Insider spotted looks that were deserving of their own curtain call. Take a look.

Yellow is very now

Diamonds are forever

Peachy keen looks

It’s the shades

Yes, we’re blushing too

Chic florals

A flower in bloom

Monogrammed perfection

A couple that slays together

Bustles are back

How to make black interesting

Flowers in the spring

Come for the green, stay for the Chanel

The case for orange

• April was a massive bounce-back for global markets, with stocks hitting all-time highs.
• Hedge funds across the board had strong Aprils; Hedge Fund Research states it was the best month since 2020.
• Funds such as Tiger Global, CastleKnight Management, Light Street, and more surged.

Claims of historic performance are often exaggerated on Wall Street. But April was one for the record books.

The sharp rebound across global markets pushed stocks to all-time highs, with the S&P 500 rising more than 10% in April. Hedge Fund Research called it a “historic gain” for the industry, with the average fund up 4.8% — the second-best monthly return since 2009, behind only November 2020.

And still there were funds that stood out for their eye-popping performance.

Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global, the long-running stockpicking firm, was up 15% in its flagship hedge fund strategy, putting it at roughly 3% for the year, a person close to the New York-based firm told Business Insider. Another of the firm’s growth-stock-obsessed peers, Glen Kacher’s Light Street Capital, returned 18.2% in April, pushing its 2026 returns to 11.3%.

But it wasn’t just stockpickers focused on US tech companies that dominated.

CastleKnight Management, the $3.6 billion event-driven fund run by billionaire David Tepper’s nephew, Aaron Weitman, was up 21.2% last month and has made 26.9% on the year. Kenneth Tropin’s Graham Capital, which manages $21.6 billion in assets, made 6.6% in its Tactical Trend strategy and 4.2% in its Quant Macro offering in April; those two strategies are now up 20.5% and 11.1%, respectively, in 2026.

Emerging-markets-focused manager Carrhae Capital, a London-based firm run by former SAC trader Ali Akay, was up 10% on the month through April 24 in the firm’s long-short strategy. It pushed the strategy’s year-to-date gains into black, with returns of 5.5%, HSBC’s Hedge Weekly stated.

In Hong Kong, another former investor for Point72 founder Steve Cohen, Angus Wai, has his Asia-focused multimanager firm firing on all cylinders. A person close to Polymer Capital, which runs fundamental and quant strategies, said the firm was up more than 7% in April and more than 15% on the year. The managers mentioned declined to comment.

Liberation Day lessons pay off

Several factors contributed to the stellar month for hedge funds. The commodity shocks and inflation fears in March stemming from the US-Iran war eased in light of ceasefire discussions, however tenuous.

AI and technology stocks also staged a comeback, ripping late in the month after robust earnings from hyperscalers Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft.

“For most funds, April was less about embracing a benign macro regime and more about monetizing crisis hedges, covering shorts, and deciding how quickly to rebuild equity risk into a tape moving faster than most risk frameworks anticipated,” industry research firm PivotalPath said in a research report.

A common theme among outperformers was holding on to core positions during the chaos in March. One prime broker told Business Insider that client activity was more muted, focused on hedging rather than selling longs and cutting shorts, a contrast with the Liberation Day tariff mayhem a year ago.

That tactical adjustment was rewarded, PivotalPath noted, as the managers “who recovered fastest had maintained high-conviction core longs beneath index-level hedges through March and when ceasefire headlines improved the risk tone, they did not need to rebuild from cash.”

• Microsoft is offering buyouts to US employees who want to retire.
• The buyout includes cash, insurance, and stock vesting based on employee level and service years.
• The program helps Microsoft cut costs as it plans significant spending.

Microsoft released details of its buyout offer for long-serving employees in an internal document viewed by Business Insider.

Microsoft last month announced it would offer buyouts to employees at level 67 and below in the US who have 70 or more years of age and service. Microsoft said it would share the details with employees on May 7.

The buyout offer helps Microsoft cut costs as it plans significant spending, including $190 billion in capital expenditures this year, primarily related to its AI infrastructure buildout. The company recently said it expects head count to decrease in the coming quarters.

Business Insider obtained a full copy of the document, an internal explanation of the so-called Voluntary Retirement Program (VRP). According to the document, eligible employees who take the buyout will receive:

• A lump-sum cash payment equal to a minimum of eight weeks and a maximum of 39 weeks of base pay, based on seniority and tenure. Employees levels 64 and below will receive one week of base pay per six months of service, and employees levels 65 to 67 will receive two weeks of base pay per six months of service.
• Up to five years of insurance coverage, including medical, dental, and vision for the employee and their dependents. Microsoft pays for the first year.
• Continued regular stock vesting for six or 12 months, based on years of service.
• Continued retirement stock vesting for employees who meet certain requirements.
• Last day of employment July 1.

Employees with less than 24 years of service will receive six months of unvested stock awards after their employment ends. That vesting period will expand to 12 months for employees with more than 24 years of service.

The document states Microsoft has no plan to offer another voluntary retirement program in the future.

Read the full details of Microsoft’s buyout package (edited for length and clarity):

“What is included in the VRP Benefits Package?

…

VRP extended healthcare

VRP participants may be eligible for up to 5 years of continued post-employment access to Microsoft medical, dental, vision, and Wellbeing at Microsoft coverage for themself and their eligible dependents.

Year 1: Microsoft subsidized

Years 2-5: VRP participants will pay a monthly premium

Coverage may end sooner than 5 years from termination date, depending on personal circumstances and timing, including eligibility for Medicare or other coverage options.

Cash Lump Sum payment

A lump sum cash severance payment payable following termination of employment equal to the following:

For employees at Levels 64 and below: One (1) week of base pay for every 6 months of regular service to Microsoft, with a minimum of 8 weeks and a maximum of 39 weeks.

For employees at Levels 65-67: Two (2) weeks of base pay for every 6 months of regular service to Microsoft, with a minimum of 8 weeks and a maximum of 39 weeks.

Continued Stock Award vesting

6 months of continued scheduled vests of unvested stock awards following the termination date.

This 6-month continued vesting period will be extended to 12-months if the VRP participant has 24 years or more of continuous service.

Stock plan retirement

If the VRP participant’s most recent date of hire was before August 1, 2023, and if their unvested stock award provides for continued vesting following an eligible “Retirement,” and if on their termination date they are either (1) age 64, or (2) within one year of attaining age 55 with 15 years of continuous service, then they will be treated as meeting the age and service requirements for Retirement under the award agreement(s) for any and all unvested stock awards.

This will result in continued scheduled vesting of any unvested stock awards that were granted more than one year before their termination date and are eligible for Retirement vesting under the terms of the award agreements (generally non-SSA awards). All other requirements for Retirement set forth in the award agreement(s) must still be met.

What are the actions & timeline for VRP?

This one-time program has specific and fixed timeline as shown here.

… [Business Insider removed some administrative deadlines here for length and clarity]

July 1: Last day of Microsoft employment for VRP participants.

July 2: Microsoft employment termination date for VRP participants.

Will VRP be offered again in the future?

We understand why people ask this question—it’s natural to want clarity when you’re thinking about your future.

At this time, there is no plan or commitment to offer another voluntary retirement program. This is a unique one-time action.

How does the VRP impact employees who are not eligible?

The VRP is a one-time, voluntary program for eligible employees. If you are not eligible, you may experience changes on your team if colleagues elect to retire from Microsoft with VRP. Eligibility for VRP does not influence how decisions are made regarding other workforce changes. Organizational and workforce decisions continue to be based on business priorities and needs and are not determined by VRP eligibility.

Who is eligible for the VRP and how was eligibility determined?

Eligibility is based on objective, predefined criteria applied consistently across the US employee population and finalized prior to the program launch. Managers and leaders do not determine eligibility.

To be eligible for the VRP, employees must have met these requirements:

• Microsoft employees on US Payroll at Level 67 or below who are not on a sales and services incentive plan (namely a S, T, D, V, M, or P (other than P2) Plan); and
• Employees whose age + years of service (as of June 30, 2026), each rounded to the nearest whole number, equals 70 or more (Rule of 70).

For this purpose, years of service will include non-continuous service with Microsoft as well as continuous service as an employee of an acquired company immediately prior to and continuing through the date of the acquisition by Microsoft or a subsidiary.

Any service before a break in employment with an acquired company, prior to the acquisition by Microsoft or a subsidiary, will not be included.

Employees must also be active or on approved leave and in good standing (have not resigned or been notified of an involuntary separation) and remain in good standing through their separation date of July 2, 2026.

Why are there eligibility exclusions?

This program was designed very intentionally around a narrow population where both tenure and role structure aligned with a one-time retirement offering funded within this fiscal year. Roles on sales incentive plans have fundamentally different compensation structures and fiscal commitments, which made inclusion in this program not viable. In addition, individuals who have previously been notified of a job elimination and have not yet separated employment as a result (for example, their termination date has not passed yet or they are on a leave of absence) are not eligible for VRP.

This very small population is already eligible for severance benefits and therefore will not be eligible for VRP.

Why is this program only available to US employees?

The VRP is limited to US employees for a few reasons:

First, the largest number of employees who meet the program criteria are based in the US, so this is where the program would have the greatest impact. Second, the design of the package reflects US-specific realities — particularly around healthcare. Across the US, more than a few employees delay retirement primarily because of uncertainty around their healthcare coverage until eligibility for Medicare, which is the US government program assuring coverage for Americans at a certain age.

A key feature of the VRP is extended healthcare coverage access geared towards helping employees mitigate or even close this gap.

Finally, the complexity of designing and delivering this first-of-a-kind program led us to concentrate on a single-country rollout.”

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