GitHub CEO Resigns as Microsoft Integrates Platform into CoreAI Team

GitHub is no longer independent at Microsoft after CEO resignation

Microsoft is moving GitHub into its CoreAI team, following the resignation of GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke today. After nearly four years as CEO, Dohmke is leaving GitHub to "become a startup founder again," and pursue opportunities outside of Microsoft and GitHub. GitHub has operated as a separate company ever since Microsoft acquired it in 2018 for $7.5 billion, but Dohmke's departure is part of a big shakeup to the way GitHub operates. Microsoft isn't replacing Dohmke's CEO position, and GitHub will now be fully part of Microsoft instead of being run as a separate entity. "GitHub and its leadership team will continue its mission as part of Microsoft's CoreAI organization, with more details shared soon," says Dohmke in a memo to GitHub employees today. "I'll be staying through the end of 2025 to help guide the transition and am leaving with a deep sense of pride in everything we've built as a remote-first organization spread around the world." Microsoft's CoreAI team is a new engineering group led by former Meta executive Jay Parikh. It includes Microsoft's platform and tools division and Dev Div teams, with a focus on building an AI platform and tools for both Microsoft and its customers. Parikh described his vision of an AI agent factory in an interview with Notepad earlier this year, and how he is convincing the developer division of Microsoft to adopt AI. "Just like how Bill [Gates] had this idea of Microsoft being a bunch of software developers building a bunch of software, I want our platform, for any enterprise or any organization, to be able to be the thing they turn into their own agent factory," said Parikh. Dohmke only just appeared on Decoder last week, discussing Copilot, vibe coding, and what's next for AI. Dohmke was thinking a lot about the competition and GitHub's role in the future of software development, and now he's about to leave to potentially create some more competition for Microsoft's AI efforts.

GitHub folds into Microsoft following CEO resignation -- once independent programming site now part of 'CoreAI' team

One of the web's most important programming tools is absorbed GitHub has become one with Microsoft today, marking the end of the website's independence. Former CEO Thomas Dohmke announced he would step down from his role at GitHub today, leaving Microsoft to take control of the company. GitHub will now become part of Microsoft's CoreAI team, with no successor yet announced for Dohmke. Dohmke shared in a GitHub blog post that his departure is due to a desire to found a new tech startup. Dohmke will stay on at GitHub through the end of the year to assist in the transition of folding GitHub fully into Microsoft, leaving his founder dreams on hold until then. In his personal X (formerly Twitter) post announcing his resignation, Dohmke teased that future projects may include a new GitHub successor. GitHub is one of the largest code repositories in the world, having become an essential tool for spreading and collaborating on code projects. It was built based on Git, a distributed version control system for developers created by Linus Torvalds in 2005 to support the development of the Linux kernel. GitHub recently saw its one billionth repo hit the site, which was simply the word "sh*t". Dohmke has been a key part of GitHub in the Microsoft era, joining the company following Microsoft's $7.5 billion acquisition of the site in 2018 and becoming CEO in 2021. GitHub reached 150 million users and 1 billion repos under Dohmke and became the first landing place for Copilot AI. Microsoft's original acquisition of GitHub allowed the site to continue operating independently from Microsoft. However, that independence will soon end as GitHub, a currently remote-first workplace, becomes further wrapped into Microsoft's control. Microsoft's decision to wrap GitHub into its CoreAI teams likely indicates an intent to double down on GitHub's AI projects. GitHub Copilot, the first iteration of Copilot to make it to commercial launch in the Windows ecosystem, has become a successful AI coding assistant and a key part of GitHub's public focus, recently receiving a free version for all users. The focus on AI-assisted coding is a well-debated topic in the programming world, with even AI coding assistants hallucinating and telling users to stop using it and learn to code themselves. Some internet speculators have become wary of the future of GitHub now that it is becoming fully wrapped into Microsoft. Past acquisitions, such as those of Skype and Xamarin, serve as examples of companies and programs that Microsoft has since discontinued. Some fear GitHub may face a similar fate if it is not rebranded and Teams-ified instead. The future of GitHub is uncertain, but Microsoft is highly unlikely to discontinue the operations of the cornerstone of modern coding.

GitHub head ankles as Microsoft takes biz by the hand

Code hosting biz takes a back seat within Microsoft's CoreAI division GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke plans to leave the company and corporate parent Microsoft will not appoint a successor. Dohmke assumed the position back in November 2021, replacing Nat Friedman, who helmed the code hosting biz since Microsoft acquired it for $7.5 billion in 2018. In a public post of an internal memo sent to staff on Monday, Dohmke bid goodbye, citing the desire to work on founding another company. "GitHub and its leadership team will continue its mission as part of Microsoft's CoreAI organization, with more details shared soon," he said. "I'll be staying through the end of 2025 to help guide the transition and am leaving with a deep sense of pride in everything we've built as a remote-first organization spread around the world." The CoreAI group formed in January under EVP Jay Parikh. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, at the time, cited the need to build out Microsoft's AI platform and tools for running AI apps and agents. He cited GitHub Copilot as one of the group's areas of focus, but he didn't make clear that this meant decapitating the subsidiary by leaving it without a chief executive. Under the CoreAI group, GitHub will almost certainly operate with less independence, though Redmond has not made details public yet. The biz had an annual run rate of $2 billion per Microsoft's 2024 Q4 results. That year, GitHub Copilot subscriptions accounted for 40 percent of the subsidiary's revenue growth. GitHub Copilot has 20 million users, Dohmke said, up from 15 million three months ago. That's both paid and non-paying users. When the biz last reported paid Copilot subscribers in Q2 2024, just 1.3 million were paying customers. According to Axios, Julia Liuson, who runs Microsoft's developer division, will manage GitHub revenue, engineering, and support. And Mario Rodriguez, GitHub chief product officer, will report to Asha Sharma, VP of Microsoft AI platform. Sharma in a post to LinkedIn praised Dohmke and said she's excited to work with Parikh, Liuson, Rodriguez, and the GitHub leadership team to continue the work of delivering a great developer experience. "Code is becoming the primary artifact of work in the digital economy -- the blueprint for products, services, and experiences," she said. "As AI agents take on more of the writing, reviewing, and committing of code, the role of developers - and the importance of coding itself - will only grow." Except at Microsoft, where the role of developers is somewhat diminished after 15,000 job cuts this year. We reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this article if we receive a response. ®

GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke to step down, plans new startup

Aug 11 (Reuters) - GitHub Chief Executive Thomas Dohmke said on Monday he will leave the Microsoft-owned (MSFT.O), opens new tab code-hosting platform to launch a new startup, capping a tenure that included a major push into artificial intelligence through the company's Copilot products. Dohmke, who moved to the U.S. from Germany more than a decade ago after selling his startup to Microsoft, said his "startup roots" prompted the decision. "I've decided to leave GitHub to become a founder again," he said in a blog post, but did not provide details about the new venture. Before becoming CEO, Dohmke helped lead mobile developer tools at Microsoft and worked on GitHub's acquisition alongside former CEO Nat Friedman. Microsoft acquired GitHub in a $7.5 billion all-stock deal in 2018. More than 150 million developers use GitHub's tools to build, maintain and collaborate on software projects, according to the company's website. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Dohmke's successor. His transition period concludes at the end of the year. Dohmke said that under his leadership, GitHub expanded globally, earned U.S. FedRAMP certification for federal use and doubled AI projects on the platform. Axios, which first reported the news, said Microsoft developer division head Julia Liuson will oversee GitHub's revenue, engineering and support. GitHub's chief product officer, Mario Rodriguez, will report to head of product for Microsoft's AI platform Asha Sharma, according to the report. Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Boards, Policy & Regulation

Microsoft's GitHub chief is leaving as competition ramps up in AI coding market

GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke speaks at the VivaTech technology startup and innovation fair in Paris on June 12, 2025. Microsoft's GitHub unit, which is facing a torrent of competition from AI-powered coding tools, is losing its leader, and the company isn't immediately naming a successor. Thomas Dohmke, who has been CEO of GitHub since 2021, joined Microsoft in 2015 through the acquisition of his prior startup HockeyApp. Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion in 2018, and Dohmke moved over to that business as product chief in mid-2021. Months later, he replaced Nat Friedman as GitHub CEO. In a memo to employees on Monday that Dohmke shared as a blog post, he said he's leaving GitHub to "become a founder again," though he'll be staying on through the end of the year "to help guide the transition." With Microsoft planning to invest tens of billions of dollars a year in artificial intelligence infrastructure and development, CEO Satya Nadella in January announced the formation of the CoreAI platform and tools group under former Meta executive Jay Parikh. GitHub became part of that group. "GitHub and its leadership team will continue its mission as part of Microsoft's CoreAI organization, with more details shared soon," Dohmke wrote. A GitHub spokesperson declined to provide additional details. In 2021, under Friedman's leadership, GitHub launched Copilot in collaboration with Microsoft and OpenAI. The offering, which could suggest code for developers to add to their projects, was used by a number of customers, with an eye toward making their engineers more productive. GitHub claims to have over 150 million registered developers, up from 73 million in October 2021. While GitHub enjoyed a head start in AI due to its popularity as a code-sharing platform, a host of fast-growing competitors have emerged in the world of so-called vibe coding, which counts on AI models to quickly produce code for apps and websites. They include Cursor creator Anysphere, Replit and Windsurf, whose CEO was hired by Google last month as part of a $2.4 billion AI talent deal. A Stack Overflow developer survey conducted in May and June showed that around 76% of respondents were using Microsoft's Visual Studio Code as a code editor. Roughly 18% said they were depending on Cursor, nearly 10% were using Anthropic's Claude Code and 5% mentioned Windsurf. Claude Code, Cursor and Windsurf were all absent in the same section of last year's survey Microsoft is still seeing growth from Copilot. Nadella said last month that 20 million people were using it, with the number of Copilot Enterprise customers increasing 75% quarter over quarter. "I am more convinced than ever that the world will soon see one billion developers enabled by billions of AI agents, each imprinting human ingenuity into a new gold rush of software," Dohmke wrote. "When that day comes, we'll know where the path began: with GitHub."

GitHub will join Microsoft's CoreAI division with departure of CEO Thomas Dohmke

Microsoft will bring GitHub into its CoreAI division with the announcement this morning that GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke will be stepping down as the leader of the widely used software development platform and code repository. GitHub has operated largely on its own since its acquisition by Microsoft in 2018 for $7.5 billion. However, with the rise of the GitHub Copilot coding assistant and the broader growth of AI-powered software development, GitHub's fortunes are increasingly tied to those of its parent company. Dohmke said in a post Monday morning that he will remain with GitHub through the end of 2025 to help guide the transition before leaving to start a new company. He said his decision was driven by a desire to return to his startup roots after more than a decade at Microsoft and GitHub. "With more than 1B repos and forks, and over 150 million developers, GitHub has never been stronger than it is today," he wrote. "We have seen more open-source projects with more contributions every year. AI projects have doubled in the last year alone. And our presence in companies of any size is unmatched in the market." GitHub also faces pressure from AI-powered coding tools. In addition to the coding capabilities from OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude, tools like Cursor have seen meteoric growth, and Google's Alphabet is pushing further into agentic coding with its recruitment of key leaders from AI code generation startup Windsurf. Microsoft formed its CoreAI group in January to develop AI technologies and tools for the company and its customers. The group is led by Jay Parikh, the former global head of engineering at Facebook (now Meta), who joined Microsoft in October 2024. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said last year that GitHub Copilot had become a larger business on its own than all of GitHub was when Microsoft bought it. According to Microsoft's recent earnings call, GitHub Copilot now has 20 million users, and enterprise customers grew 75% quarter-over-quarter. Ninety percent of the Fortune 100 use the AI assistant, and AI projects on GitHub more than doubled over the past year, according to the company. Announcing the acquisition in 2018, Microsoft promised that GitHub would "operate independently to provide an open platform for all developers in all industries." We've asked Microsoft for more information on the new structure and what it means for GitHub's operations, and we'll update this post as we learn more. Dohmke, who moved from Germany to the United States after selling his startup to Microsoft more than a decade ago, took over as GitHub CEO in 2021 after helping to lead the acquisition alongside Nat Friedman.

Exclusive: GitHub CEO plans to step down

Why it matters: GitHub, which has operated largely independently since Microsoft acquired it in 2018, has become increasingly important to Microsoft's overall strategy to woo developers to Windows and Azure, as well as to its suite of AI tools. Driving the news: Dohmke told staff in an email, seen by Axios, that he is leaving to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors. * In a separate memo, Microsoft CoreAI head Jay Parikh outlined a new structure that will see GitHub leadership reporting to several Microsoft executives. * Microsoft developer division head Julia Liuson will oversee GitHub's revenue, engineering and support. * GitHub chief product offer Mario Rodriguez will report to Microsoft AI platform VP Asha Sharma. The big picture: The world has changed a great deal since Microsoft acquired GitHub seven years ago. At the time, buying the code repository site was seen mostly as an embrace of the open source world Microsoft once shunned. * However, with the rise of generative AI, GitHub has grown into a central place for developers to do their work. * For Microsoft, meanwhile, GitHub has been at the leading edge of a broader effort to add AI-powered copilots throughout its product portfolio. What they're saying: Dohmke said he is leaving with GitHub in good shape. "With more than 1B repos and forks, and over 150 million developers, GitHub has never been stronger than it is today," he said in his email. "Because of your relentless work, GitHub Copilot has introduced the greatest change to software development since the advent of the personal computer."