Gaben already refused to sell to EA and made it abundantly clear that we would rather let valve die than go public.

Microsoft also just recently said they'd buy Nintendo if they could.

All this means is that Microsoft is filthy rich and still doesn't know how to make an original quality game studio. They seem to overly rely on buying out studios and IPs that are successful to rake in more money.

Day 1 of suddenly having the urge to keep an offline and DRM free copy of all my steam games.

That leaked email conveniently assumes the owner of Valve would sell it. I can't think of a reason for Gabe to do that.

Hopefully Gabe doesn't allow that to ever happen

Gaben is one of the few people in tech I trust to resist the money MSFT would be willing to throw at something as successful as valve. I mean - they’re the closest thing to a trustworthy company as you can find these days.