For example, how much equity in OpenAI will Microsoft receive once the latter evolves into a for-profit company? That is the multibillion-dollar question — one both parties are racing to answer before a two-year deadline.

Investment banks had been hired by both Microsoft and OpenAI to negotiate the equity value, which will run into hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Wall Street Journal. It is reported that nearly $14bn was sunk by the tech giant into the firm. Going into October, the startup ranks only second most valuable in the United States behind SpaceX.

Other questions had to do with how much equity will flow to CEO Sam Altman and OpenAI employees, and then there were the specifics of governance rights that Microsoft would have. After it becomes a for-profit by converting, OpenAI will then be a public-benefit corporation, but one with this nonprofit component that owns equity in the reorganized firm.

This arrives at the negotiations just as OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman, is reportedly set to end an extended leave by returning sometime as early as November.