Three major execs at Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced their departures on Wednesday. The OpenAI CTO resignation comes, during a period of change and expansion for the AI firm. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, VP of Research Barret Zoph, and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew revealed their plans to resign in a posts on X.
OpenAI leadership shakeup with three leaders quitting on Wednesday is the latest in a string of executive departures this year coming at a time of flux for the ChatGPT maker.
OpenAI plans restructuring and funding
The San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup is negotiating a new $6.5 billion financing round valuing the company at $150 billion, contingent on the company upending its corporate structure.
The company plans to restructure to a for-profit benefit corporation and will give CEO Sam Altman an equity stake, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Currently, a non-profit board controls the for-profit entity, an unusual structure which led to members of the non-profit board ousting Altman in November 2023 over a breakdown in communication and loss of trust. He was reinstated after five days.
The funding round has not closed yet and the company is in the process of finalizing it.
OpenAI leadership shakeup
It was unclear whether the executives’ departure could affect the ongoing fundraise. Some fundraising documents contain a “material adverse change” clause which allows investors to withdraw from a deal if the company encounters anything that could have a significant negative impact.
Murati, Zoph and McGrew are the latest in a string of OpenAI executive departures. In August, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman said on X that he had joined rival AI company Anthropic and another co-founder, Greg Brockman, also said on X he was taking a sabbatical through the end of the year. A third co-founder, chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, left OpenAI in May.
Mira Murati resigns
Murati is still working at OpenAI while she negotiates her exit from the company, as per sources. Murati has been part of the ChatGPT maker for 6-1/2 years, and briefly served as CEO in November when the board temporarily ousted Altman.
As CTO, Murati frequently appeared alongside Altman as the public face of the ChatGPT maker.
“I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration,” Murati wrote a post on X.
Altman on Murati’s resignation
On X, Altman said Murati did not inform him in advance of her departure, explaining to him that she wanted to do it when the company was in an upswing and that “there is never a good time”. In the same post, Altman also announced a slew of internal promotions: Matt Knight to chief information security officer, Josh Achiam to head of mission alignment and Mark Chen to senior vice president of Research.
