More OpenAI Exec Departures Amid Fundraising, Restructuring

Major changes are emerging at OpenAI amid a corporate restructuring and departures of three leading technical executives.

Among the three executives who took to social media to announce their resignation from the San Francisco-based AI startup are Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, VP Research Barret Zoph and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew.

The high level departures comes amid major structural changes to its non-profit states, coupled with a $6 billion (£4.5bn)-plus funding round, which represents a bet by venture capital firms that the company will grow to be worth trillions of dollars.

Latest departures

The latest round of executive departures saw all three announce their resignation on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twttter).

Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati for example tweeted that she had “made the difficult position to leave OpenAI”, because she wanted to “create the time and space to do my own exploration.”

VP Research Barret Zoph meanwhile also tweeted that he had made the “very difficult decision” to leave, but that “right now feels like a natural point for me to explore new opportunities outside of OpenAI. This is a personal decision based on how I want to evolve the next phase of my career.”

OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew also tweeted that “it is time for me to take a break” after working for the firm for eight years.

Saddened Altman

CEO Sam Altman tweeted that “when Mira informed me this morning that she was leaving, I was saddened but of course support her decision.”

He stated he was not aware of the resignations ahead of time.

“I also want to share that Bob and Barret have decided to depart OpenAI. Mira, Bob, and Barret made these decisions independently of each other and amicably, but the timing of Mira’s decision was such that it made sense to now do this all at once, so that we can work together for a smooth handover to the next generation of leadership,” he added. “I am extremely grateful to all of them for their contributions.”

Altman meanwhile appointed Matt Knight to chief information security officer, Josh Achiam to head of mission alignment and Mark Chen to senior vice president of Research.

It was unclear whether these executives’ departure will impact OpenAI’s ongoing fundraising and whether it will impact any potential “material adverse change” clause in funding documentation.

That funding is dependent on a restructure of OpenAI to a for-profit benefit corporation that will give Altman an equity stake.

Executive exodus?

OpenAI has been hit with some of an exodus of departures this year, after OpenAI’s previous non-profit board had ousted CEO Sam Altman in November 2023, citing a breakdown in communication and loss of trust.

However Altman was reinstated five days later, after significant pushback and pressure from OpenAI investors including Microsoft.

So who exactly has left OpenAI so far this year?

In August, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman tweeted on X that he had joined rival AI company Anthropic AI.

Another co-founder, Greg Brockman, also tweeted on X in early August that he was taking a sabbatical through the end of the year.

A third co-founder, chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, left OpenAI in May and started his own AI company.

Days after Sutskever’s departure, his safety team co-leader Jan Leike also resigned and hit out at OpenAI for letting safety “take a backseat to shiny products.”