This continually gets passed around, but it's the result of bad journalism. It was a comment made by one of the developers and was never an official comment/statement from Microsoft.
Just adding for the record that I despise Microsoft, so I'm not trying to defend them. Just always see this referenced and figure it's better to set the record straight.
Headline is a bit misleading:
There has been no confirmation that such a proposal is on the table, and Newsweek has contacted the White House and the office of Alaska's governor for comment. The Telegraph cited a White House statement that it did not comment "on deliberative conversations that may or may not be happening."
I loathe Trump and won't be surprised if he does in fact offer this, but he hasn't actually proposed it to Putin yet.
Yeah, what an incredibly stupid opinion.